


Uncertainty Principle

by Blurble



Series: Uncertainty Principle [1]
Category: Aveyond
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 66,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5327249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blurble/pseuds/Blurble





	1. Chapter 1

The thing about seeing the future is that, because you can never judge the velocity and mass of a particle at the same time, you can only ever make rough estimates, probability predictions of what will be.  
  
The Oracle doesn’t tell anyone that, though. She likes being omniscient. All she needs to do is choose the options with the highest probability. The orphan girl with a 90% chance of using the fairy dust, for example.   
  
Talia Maurva had just been a case of necessity- no one else with a higher rating than 42% of preventing Ahriman from being raised was being born anytime soon and if she had waited much longer there would have been a 94% chance of her carefully maintained world ending rather… painfully.  
  
And after the world is saved? The Oracle was a very generous person. She didn’t leave her noble heroes adrift to make bad decisions; she did, after all, owe them a debt of gratitude. And so she always gave them the decisions she saw would work best, and was pleased at their glowing smiles of gratitude as they accepted her wisdom and embarked on a new life.  
  
\---  
  
Rhen smiled gratefully at the Oracle, accepting the wisdom she had been granted.   
  
Her cheeks ached from the effort of maintaining the expression, and behind the slight, modest tilt of her head her mind was racing furiously.  
  
What she wanted was a moment or two to properly consider her options. But the Oracle wasn’t granting that- her steely gaze held Rhen pinned.   
  
What should she choose?  
  
Dameon? Oh, a thousand hells no. It came with a price tag, for one thing- and she didn’t want to be queen, she didn’t want to be queen  _at all_ , the thought of being forced into associating only with nobles for the rest of her life (not an  _entirely_  bad breed, nobles, merely a mostly bad one) made her feel an immediate need to jump off a cliff. And Dameon himself…   
  
She was furious at him. They could probably be friends again when she got around to forgiving him, but she needed  _time_  to do that, not a hastily imposed marriage. Actually, marriage would probably ruin any chance she had of reconciliation. And they weren’t going to be more than friends any time soon, because friends could betray you and be forgiven but more-than-friends were held to higher standards.   
  
And in any case she would have to start being friends with the real Dameon now, not the fake one he’d been using all this time to- She shuddered despite herself- seduce her. She had no idea who the real Dameon was. She didn’t want to find out only after a marriage.  
  
So. Not Dameon, then.  
  
Marry Danny? Not that she couldn’t understand the possibility- she still felt a warm fuzzy glow when she thought of him, it was just… that she hadn’t, in fact, thought of him for months now. She’d found his vampire-drained body and revived him, and that had briefly brought him back to her awareness- she appreciated his coming to save her, she did, really, even if he had come too late. But he belonged to some other, completely different life in which a girl that she was not, anymore, lived happily and peacefully in a small town.   
  
Sometimes, frankly, she forgot he existed. And while it wasn’t like she was a romantic or anything (except she was, deep down)- she nevertheless had a hunch that marrying someone who only with conscious effort existed in your mind was probably not the most… exciting thing in the world, to say the least.  
  
Option three didn’t involve marrying anyone.  
It could have been a wonderful option.   
She had an extremely strong suspicion the Oracle didn’t want her choosing it.  
  
It was just the way she sensed certain choices being weighted. Like when she had a choice between the sunscreen and the 200 gold- who in their right mind would have taken the gold?   
  
That was the vibe she was getting here. The Oracle probably liked marrying people off.  
  
Because otherwise  _why_  in the seven heavens would the only non-marriage option involve living in  _seclusion_ for the rest of her life??? That was basically what hermitage amounted to. What, had single-ness become an infectious disease that needed to be quarantined off from the rest of humanity? And she didn’t even necessarily want to be single, she just wanted more damn time. To get things straight in her head. To rinse off the blood.  
  
There were only three options. The silence had extended for too long, everyone was shifting uncomfortably, probably wondering what was taking Rhen so long- Oh, easy for you, she thought sourly, you’re not the ones deciding the rest of your future- and the Oracle was still smiling that benign, patronizing smile. Probably convinced that these were the most wonderful options in the world and Rhen just couldn’t decide which was the most wonderful.  
  
(Rhen decided that she had probably started disliking the Oracle way back in the chamber of the Empress when she and Talia had made a wonderfully obscure, cryptic pair, like the world would end if someone actually went to the trouble of explaining things properly to Rhen. Actually, when  _had_  she become so bitter? She'd used to be a bright, cheerful girl… Oh right. Then Talia had shoved a priestess ring on her finger without any explanation and she’d been shipped away from her family and enslaved on the other side of the world to a fat nasty woman and her bratty nasty son. Nevermind, then.)  
  
 _Think_ , Rhen Darzon, use your lovely brain. There must be some way out of this.  
  
She took a deep breath, and somewhere at the end of a tunnel a light began to glow.  
  
“I’d like to marry Dameon”. 


	2. Chapter 2

Three girls helped her put the dress on. Three! When she was a proper queen there would be five! If she’d been harboring any last minute doubts about what she was about to do they would have been washed away in the utter ridiculousness of Rhen Darzon, a former slave slash savior of the world, being expected to be unable to  _put her clothing on_.  
  
Actually, the fact that she actually  _was_  unable to put her clothing on would probably have done it. The corset, the petticoats... She kept expecting some monster to jump out and attack her and she’d go down screaming and _die_ , all because she couldn’t move efficiently when wearing a mountain of fabric.  
  
Now that she was in the dress, though, it would probably take a miracle to get it off. Oh well. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since defeating Ahriman, not a single opportunity to escape.  
  
Well, here was the opportunity, and she wasn’t going to squander it getting out of the dress. She was expected to make her way down to the wedding on her own now, but if she took too long they would send someone to find her. And at that point she needed to be sure that the only thing they would find would be her letter.  
  
She’d already thought this out. She couldn’t head anywhere straight, because the future queen couldn’t exactly wander out of the city in her wedding gown, now could she? She took a last look around and pulled out the Aveyond portal stone, rubbed it between her hands and felt it warm to life.  
  
Behind her on the desk lay a neatly folded sheet of paper.  
  
 _Dameon-  
Thais is all yours, now. I’m sure you can handle it, you always struck me as uniquely suited to the job. Have fun!  
  
Love,  
Rhen  
  
( ~~I’m sorry about leavi~~ Find yourself a pretty girl that a daeva didn’t tell you seduce, okay? And maybe consider growing your hair out.)_  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Ahem”.  
  
The chancellor, standing stiffly in the doorway, looked impatient. He was the sort of person very talented at looking impatient, a skinny bald man that Dameon had not particularly disliked until just now. Once again, the man cleared his throat loudly.  
  
Dameon turned the note over in his hands. It felt like the hundredth, thousandth time, but it was probably just the… fifteenth, maybe? Twentieth? Who was counting how many times he had futilely searched for even a line of explanation on this stupid sheet of paper?  
  
There was one, really. The crossed out apology and the hastily scrawled line next to it, written in sloppy forceful handwriting in contrast to the neat loops of the line above. They gave plenty of explanation as to why Rhen Darzon- Rhen Pendragon- had run away. They just gave no information as to why she had never simply  _told_  him, let him see an inkling of her doubts or frustrations. Why she hadn’t trusted-  
  
Well, that  _was_  the central issue, wasn’t it. They had been so close! She had changed him! She had made him into a better person, she had saved him from the dark side…  
  
And he had… he had… He had been someone she liked, hadn’t he? She’d blushed every time he talked to her!   
  
The chancellor coughed. “If you’ll excuse me… but if you are quite done examining the note, there are still several rather important ceremonies left to attend.”  
  
“I- um. Sorry,  _what_?”  
  
“Ceremonies. To attend.”  
  
“But...but the wedding is off! There shouldn’t  _be_  any ceremonies to attend.”   
  
“Yes, that will require a cancellation ceremony, big pain, I agree. But there is still a coronation to attend, as well as an official dedication of the future site of Thais castle, as well as a fundraising event, and all this before the day is done. There really is no time to waste.” He said the final sentence disdainfully, dropping the final word like something unpleasant.  
  
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understa-”  
  
“You are now the new king of Thais, there are  _duties_  you have to fulfill.”  
  
“Why am I the king?”  
  
“Well, firstly, because that was one of the things settled during the pre-marriage stage. Thais is traditionally ruled by a King, with a queen to produce heirs. When only a female heir is available, her spouse becomes the next king.”  
  
“But I’m not her spouse.”  
  
“Well, according to common law, no, but according to the Thaian legal system you have already acquired all her rights during the engagement process. As she has not properly reclaimed them- and you have written proof of that right there,” he said, gesturing to the paper, “you are obviously still in line for the throne.”  
  
If Rhen was here she would be furious, listening to this man. If Rhen was here…  
  
He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. Not the last line, that made his heart ache.  
  
 _I’m sure you can handle it, you always struck me as uniquely suited to the job._  
  
He owed her…  
  
YOU OWE HER NOTHING. A part of his mind screamed. SHE LEFT YOU AT THE ALTAR!  
  
But he could turn that to his advantage, couldn’t he? He already knew all the nobles by name, rank, and personal flaws. He could already see just how he was going to have to spin this…  
  
In his head he felt the sudden exhilaration of power, and panicked. This felt too much like what it had been like serving under Ahriman, watching the world turn at his whim. It was dangerous. He would have to watch himself very carefully, as he got to work fixing up this mess of a city that Rhen- pang in his heart and a painful tightening in his chest when he thought her name, and how could he use that? His subjects’ pity could be turned to love and loyalty, it wasn’t a bad place to start…  
  
He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked at the unsuspecting chancellor, standing there so irritatingly, blissfully unaware that as soon as Dameon was king he was going to be cleaning horse stables. But there was no need for him to know that yet… Dameon smiled to himself.  
  
“Very well, he said, composing his feature into the perfect semblance of a nobly oppressed lord rising to take a necessary burden, “we shall go”.  
  
 _Ambiguously royal we_ , he thought,  _nice touch_.  
  
And the pain in his heart and his head were just the tempo of a new life, starting... now.  
  
\----  
  
  
She battled her way through the snowy northern continent with practiced ease, making her way along a path to the dock that she’s taken many times before, and felt a swell of nostalgia as she dispatched with ease the monsters that once upon a time had been such frustrating barriers to getting where she needed to go.  
  
Alone in the wilderness, she had plenty of time to start feeling guilty. Sure, Dameon had started off knowingly using her but even she wasn’t blind enough to not notice that things had changed, tat in the weeks leading up to the wedding he had looked at her with real devotion. At the time it had made her feel even more chained but in retrospect she began to feel like scum.  
  
It was just… the person  _Dameon_  had fallen in love with had been real, not a figment of the imagination crossed with wishful thinking.  
  
Maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe Dameon had fallen in love with a fantasy just as much as she had. Because the person Dameon loved was almost definitely not someone who had led him on, and then left him on the _wedding_  day-  
  
Oh, she wished she’d had a chance to escape earlier. It would have made things so much simpler.  
  
At that, a fresh wave of guilt started, and she ruthlessly suppressed it. Dameon would recover, and it was better to have this over with now rather than going through the motions of a loveless marriage.  
  
And there, past a pair of easily dispatched snow-wolves, was the dock.  
  
“Where to?” The ferryman asked.  
  
“Eastern Continent,” she breathed, without even thinking, as she stepped into the boat.  
  
Veldarah. It was the natural, instinctive choice. The empress who had been her salvation could be so once again. And…   
  
Clearwater was a distant dream. Returning there had been a surreal experience, compounded by the discovery that her parents were not her blood parents, merely her adoptive ones. She suppressed that line of thought. She was Rhen Darzon, not Rhen Pendragon. She felt a vague fondness for Devin, nothing more, and not even a recollection of her deceased blood mother, Alicia (who had apparently also not been fond of being royalty, even if she had gone along in the end). Ma and Pa were still her true parents. But she’d grown up and left the nest, and Clearwater wasn’t…  
  
  
There had been a house in Sedona. But she’d handed it over to Mad Marge, who had grand dreams of transforming it into a massively lucrative inn. By now all the familiar rooms had probably been gutted, crammed with beds instead. And it was too full of memories that clung to the walls and whispered.   
  
But Veldarah- and just the name made her heart ache, in a pleasant way. It had come to feel like home, and each time she’d returned there she’d been pleasantly surprised to see that the feeling remained, even as her visits grew rarer and rarer. Truthfully, her bitter memories of the eastern continent were more than matched by her happy ones, in the one place where people remembered both Rhen the girl and Rhen the heroine, not just one-or-the-other.  
  
It also meant, though, that she was going to have to deal with a certain green-haired sorcerer sooner or later. Not something she was looking forward to.   
  
Well, first she’d- No, first she’d buy some clothing, change out of this dress, clean herself up.  
  
 _Then_  she’d visit the empress. Pay her respects, request permission to settle (she had never stopped being a citizen of Veldarah, heck she still had that token that had declared her “property of the empress” somewhere), apologize for any possibly future diplomatic difficulties with Thais- Nah, Dameon wouldn’t… Would he?  
  
And then she’d go to Shadwood Academy and inquire about a teaching job.  
  
And then maybe find some other things to do. For a few years, say. There was no need to hurry a confrontation with Lars.   
  
Procrastination, the grand cure of all life’s ills. She should be able to avoid Lars for a long time, if she put enough effort into it. 


	3. Chapter 3

So naturally she walked into Master Harald’s office just as Lars was walking out.  
  
 _Dammit dammit dammit…_  
  
“Hi,” she smiled sweetly.  
  
He looked like a house had just fallen on him.  
  
For a moment his mouth moved, noiselessly, and then he finally said in a sort of rasp-  
  
“Rhen-”  
  
And she could practically see the gears in his head frantically churning, as he tried to grasp what was going on. Actually, she hadn’t ever seen Lars flabbergasted before. He was always so… on top of it. She’d hated it. Even way back in the beginning of everything when she’d just become savior of the world he hadn’t hesitated before volunteering to accompany her, even while she’d been utterly lost and confused he’d been self-assured and convinced he was right…  
  
He took a deep breath, and his face settled into that half-lidded smug expression she loathed.   
  
“So…” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Honeymoon preparations, huh?”  
  
Damn him.  
  
“Not that it’s your business, but I-”  
  
She paused, as a sudden memory handed her the perfect response on a silver platter.  
  
“Well, actually,” she said, “I’m here to win that bet we made.”  
  
And as she glided smoothly past him into the headmaster’s office, she could feel her face breaking into a grin. Because suddenly she’d realized why what she was doing now felt so intuitively  _right_ , made so much sense to her. She remembered a rather passionate promise she once made, back before her head had been too mixed up with druids and daevas to think anything useful.   
  
Rhen Darzon, High Swordsinger. Abolisher of slavery on the Eastern Continent.  
  
Oh, she could get behind that.  
  
And for the very first time, she was rather liking her new fate.  
  
\----  
  
For the record, the interview was brief and painless.  
  
“I’m sorry that we can’t offer you a teaching job immediately,” Master Harald apologized again as she was leaving.  
  
“No, it’s fine,” Rhen said. She felt a  _little_  deflated, it was true. But no one had said fulfilling her dream was going to be easy, and she was still on a high just from figuring out what said dream actually was.  
  
“Well, I’m sure you’ll commend yourself with your work this term. I look forward to it, Ms. Darzon.” He paused, looking up from the pile of papers he was shuffling. “The keys to the school supplied apartment will be available at the main office. Rent is deducted from your salary, unless you rescind ownership.”  
  
“The school supplies an apartment?” Rhen asked. “That- That’s really convenient!” She’d been worried she’d have to live in a hotel for the next year- she’d tried three districts and  _none_  had had any rooms for rent. Veldarah was suffering a housing shortage.  
  
“Of course. It’s a job benefit. Good day, Ms. Darzon.”   
  
She practically skipped out of the office.  
  
\---  
  
Some time later, Lars decided to check up on her. Actually, he spent two hours keeping himself occupied with other things until he couldn’t take it anymore. It was all he could do to force himself to stroll languidly towards her room rather than making a mad dash.  
  
As he neared the closed door he realized that she was probably out shopping.  
  
What was she doing in Veldarah, anyway? No, that he could guess at (he thought). But where was Dameon? And why was she requesting a job, of all things? And yes, Lars already knew what she had meant by “winning the bet”, and it was perfectly ridiculous-   
  
If she was out shopping, then why was the light on? He could see it glowing in the gap between door and floor.  
  
…And Rhen had always been a fast shopper. Downright un-girly, really.  
  
In two quick strides he was by the door. He didn’t bother knocking.  
  
“You haven’t actually won the bet, you know,” He said, leaning on the doorpost. Casually, he looked around, seeking some hints as to why she was here. There were several bags strewn across the floor- he’d been right, she’d already gone shopping and returned.  
  
She scowled at him. “What are you doing here? The teachers’ living facilities are for people who need them, you’re not going to tell me that you actually-”  
  
“I have a lovely apartment of my own in the South Side, three times as big as this… thing.” He gestured dismissively.  
  
“Figures,” she muttered under her breath, bending to pick something up from under the bed, and he felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards despite himself.  
  
“What are you smiling at?” she said, straightening up.  
  
“Nothing,” he said.  
  
“Nothing?” She echoed, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed.  
  
She was being rather distracting. He had to force himself to keep his eyes on her face, rather than letting them wander just a… eyes on face, Lars. Face face face.  
  
“You haven’t won the bet yet,” he repeated, as she seemed to have missed his first point. He still didn’t understand what was going on, but…  
  
“I… why not?” She said, defensively.  
  
“You’re not High Swordsinger yet, not even close. And judging by your pathetic performance in the past, and by my own, well,  _actual talent_ , I’ll be High Sorcerer way ahead of you.”  
  
Rhen looked like she’d been slapped. “And here I thought you had actually change- You know what? Never mind.”  
  
He felt a little stung. He  _had_  changed. He didn’t feel an immediate surge of disgust when he looked at a slave anymore. He was trying very hard to be more tolerant, and open-minded, and whatever other things Rhen had constantly ragged on about.   
  
That didn’t mean he had to lie all the time, did it? All he’d done was state what was obviously the truth- He _was_  talented, and she had failed her trials three times before passing.  
  
Maybe “pathetic” had been a bit too harsh. That was probably it. God, women were so sensitive.  
  
Rhen looked like she was trying to say something. She glared at him for a few moments, clenching and unclenching her fists.  
  
“I won’t be a teacher’s assistant for long!” She declared, at last. “You’ll see, I’ll-”  
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
“I said I won’t be a-”  
  
“Teacher’s assistant, I know, I heard you,” He said. He really, really shouldn’t laugh. It was really mean. It was also really hysterical. He struggled in vain for a moment to hold it in and at last gave up and collapsed, laughing so hard his ribs ached.  
  
“I don’t understand what’s funny at all!” Rhen said, indignantly. The way she said it… the way her brows furrowed together… he felt his knees give way and he was on the floor, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.  
  
“St-stop-” he said, struggling to catch his breath, “you’re killing me ahahahahahah oh god, ‘teacher’s assistant’, I think I’m gonna dieeee ahahahahaha.”  
  
“What? What?  _What_  is so funny???”  
  
With great effort he managed to finally stop convulsing with laughter, although he felt it lingering at the back of his throat ready to explode.  
  
“Nothing. Nothing. Oh, Rhen, that’s great. I’m so-” The laughter was starting to bubble up again, and he had to take a moment or two to press it down before continuing.   
  
“I’m so proud of you. I’ll be sure to-” breathe, Lars, breathe- “I’ll be sure to request you for some of my classeeessss-” His voice went high on the last note. That was it, he couldn’t take it anymore. A painful wave of laughter shook him helplessly and he rolled around on the floor, helpless in the pain of something that was just too  _funny_ , dammit.  
  
\---  
  
She kicked him out of her room.  
  
Literally.  
  
He was curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, refusing to stop with his obnoxious little giggles.   
  
So she pulled back her foot and kicked, felt a sort of glee at the feeling of boot hitting flesh, even if he was laughing too hard to notice. He’d notice later, when it bruised. That was enough.  
  
A few more kicks moved him inch by inch to the door. When at last he was out in the hallway, she stepped back to close the door.  
  
“So when is Dameon getting here, anyway?” He asked, looking up at her, and she realized suddenly that he still didn’t know. Well, of course he didn’t, how could he? It wasn’t like she’d told him or that he could possibly have guessed yet.  
  
Actually she’d been dreading this moment, having to explain and face his disapproval- why, why had she dreaded his disapproval? She could no longer remember- but now that it was here she was absolutely not in the mood. He was an annoying little prat, he could stew in his own curiosity for a bit longer.  
  
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said, sticking out her tongue, and slammed the door behind her.  
  
She leaned against the door, felt her whole body go limp.  
  
God, she was exhausted and irritable where just a little earlier she’d been fine. Lars drained her energy faster than a vampire drained blood.  
  
And what had he been laughing about, anyway? She was only a teacher’s assistant because she had arrived after the beginning of a term, so there had been no teaching vacancies…  
  
What was that he had said? “I’ll be sure to request you for one of my classes”? What had that meant-  
  
Oh, no. No no no no no.  
  
There was no way.  
  
But he had arrived before the beginning of a term, unlike her. He was- it was painful even to think it, it was painful even to think it- a…  _somewhat_  capable sorcerer.  
  
She felt her cheeks burn red. No fair. Absolutely no fair, that she was a teacher’s assistant and he was a teacher.   
  
“No no no no no,” she chanted, willing it to not be true.   
  
He probably had the lowest class. His students probably hated his guts.  
  
That was right. He was probably having a miserable time.  
  
And she… was going to be fine. Great. Life was awesome. And she’d win the stupid bet, too. And he’d grovel at her feet. And then the world would be perfect and lovely and… and she really needed to go shopping and that was all that she was going to think about for now.   
  
Dammit.  
  
\---  
  
  
What was  _wrong_  with him?  
  
He’d avoided going to their wedding specifically because he didn’t feel ready to see her yet. And then two days after the wedding here she was- and he still couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why- and he’d gone running after her like an idiot.  
  
That he’d managed to hold out for two hours was not a comfort. It irritated him that even two hours had been so hard.  
  
His ribs ached. He’d spent a month swinging back and forth between anticipating and dreading a reunion and when it finally happened he’d collapsed laughing.   
  
Because he was an idiot.  
  
Because it had been so  _funny_ \- his lips curled up even now, thinking of it- and he hadn’t been able to help himself. Even if it wouldn’t have been possible for him to explain why to anyone else (Te’ijal would have understood, though).   
  
She got under his skin too much, that was the thing. She'd hang around for a while, and when she got bored of whatever trick she was up to she’d head back to Thais with her new, wonderful husband (that prick, he couldn’t help but think, viciously) and life would go back to being as wonderful and awesome as Lars himself.  
  
Dammit. 


	4. Chapter 4

“Um, hello,” Rhen said, looking around nervously. She felt awkward and out of place. “I’m… um… the new teaching assistant?”  
  
The woman turned towards her and smiled. “Oh, come in. I’m just setting up the next lesson… here, let me show you, you’ll be helping me with that in the future. I’m Sirona, by the way.”  
  
“Um,” Rhen said. And then, realizing that she hadn’t introduced herself properly- “Rhen. Rhen Darzon.”  
  
She waited for a flicker of recognition, mouth dry, and wondered how she would explain why the Saviour of the World was now a teaching assistant.  
  
But Sirona just nodded.  
  
“Alright, now you’ll be in charge of helping me. This is class 3C for beginner swordsingers, just basic sword technique. You’ll help organize the kids, give me back up when I need it.”  
  
“I- um- will I ever get the opportunity to teach?” She said, and realized as soon as the words were out of her mouth that they were the absolutely wrong thing to say.   
  
Sirona stiffened. “No, you’ll just…  _I’m_  the teacher here.” She paused for a second and then continued in a rush- “It’s just that it’s a big class and each kid needs individual attention, so I- not that I can’t handle an entire class myself, of course I can,” she said, trailing off, and her smile was a bit strained.  
  
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Rhen mumbled.  
  
“What? Why are you sorry? Who are you sorry for?” Sirona snapped, and Rhen decided to shut up before she made things worse.  
  
\---  
  
Well, that had gone awfully.  
  
After her bad start with Sirona, she really should have just kept her stupid trap shut. And she tried, really. She passed out papers and pressed kids feet into the right positions and corrected, over and over, their stances (was it so hard to put the right foot two inches in front of the left, shoulder-width apart? Two! Not five, not zero. Sheesh.). And she also tried, very hard, to not look as bored out of her mind as she felt.  
  
It was just… That Sirona had said something about the Boot-Slapping Mara that Rhen happened to know was just  _wrong_ , and she’d blurted out a correction before she could stop herself.  
  
Sirona had stopped dead still.  
  
A kid giggled.  
  
And then Sirona had said “ _Ms._  Darzon, I think I know better than you what beat the Boot-Slappin Mara is.”  
  
And Rhen had opened her mouth to argue and then shut it again, helplessly. There was no point in arguing.  
  
Why had she needed to make the correction at all? It just… bothered her, that a teacher, a figure of authority, could tell a bunch of kids something that was so incorrect. And what if they needed that information in the future? What if they screwed up their trials because they tried to do the Mara in the wrong beat?  
  
Of course you didn’t learn the Mara until  _after_  the trials. And the specialized instructor would explain that they were wrong and it actually wasn’t a two-three beat. And they would suffer absolutely nothing at all from thinking the wrong thing in the interim.   
  
You are an idiot, Rhen Darzon, and your mother probably dropped you on the head as child, she thought furiously, and blinked away the stinging in her eyes.  
  
When class was finally dismissed, Rhen could hear the ice dripping from Sirona’s farewell.  
  
\---  
  
Rhen was miserable, and she was miserable that she was allowing herself to be miserable.   
  
“Happiness is a state of mind”, she whispered to herself. “No one can make you unhappy but yourself. Happiness is a state of mind…”  
  
It wasn’t Rhen’s fault that she was at an absurdly advanced level of swordsinging for her age. It was an unavoidable side effect of defeating the most powerful demon in the world. It was an even more unavoidable side effect of having ever wielded the sword of shadows… just once, but the memory hummed through her bones and tendons and made every other pointy object in the world seem laughably easy to wield.  
  
No one seemed to remember that Rhen had saved the world, those that did seemed not to care. That was the thing- she hadn’t rescued them from a bad situation, she had prevented the bad situation from being allowed to happen at all, and so no one even noticed. Their comfortable lives had gone on uninterrupted, why would they know about how she had run around the world exhausted and dirty, nearly dying just so they could-   
  
“No, Kyle, you should hold it like this, you get a much firmer grip that way.”  
  
“But the teacher said…”  
  
She gritted her teeth.   
  
“Alright. I’m sorry. You’re right. Hold it like the teacher taught you, that’s a good boy.”  
  
He was wonderfully obedient. He’d get A’s in all his classes and grow up to be a marvelously mediocre swordsinger.   
  
But mediocrity was a good thing, wasn’t it? Being special just caused trouble and made people think you were an arrogant git.  
  
This was probably what Lars felt like, all the time. No, scratch that. He had too much of an ego problem to care what other people thought of him.  
  
She returned to her previous line of thought. No one  _cared_! Ahriman had been the single biggest deal of her life, looming at the edge of her thoughts for over three years now, a mindless sort of terror that kept her awake at night, and no one here seemed to be more aware of him than vague rumors about some trouble with the druids that had sorted itself out.  
  
Of course it had sorted itself out! She had been the one doing the sorting!  
  
Bad topic to think about. Think about something else.  
  
She had thought that talent was an  _asset_  to teaching. Apparently she was wrong, because now Sirona hated her, and it wasn’t like she ever got the opportunity to teach. She just helped the kids grip their swords and passed out the homework.  
  
And the kids, for the record, were brats. Had  _she_  been this immature when she was twelve?  
  
One day I am going to be High Swordsinger, she thought. All I need to do is bear with this just a bit more… Oh god, have only five minutes passed by? That was definitely twenty, that was… how much time is left? _Three hours_?  
  
And finally,  _finally_  class was dismissed.  
  
Thank god. She began to head out, when she noticed that someone- one of the kids- had left a bag behind. She knelt down to pick it up, but the strap was wedged under a bookcase… she pulled at it. Nothing. Harder, and the entire bookcase swayed.  
  
She gritted her teeth, and with one hand steadying the shelf, she  _yanked_. The bag pulled free.  
  
She was about to get up when she heard Sirona talking.  
  
“No, I’m fine, it’s great, thanks.”  
  
Someone else, asking a question-  
  
“Yes, well. It’s just that my assistant is so hopeless, y’know? She gets along terribly with the kids and yet she’s _so_  stuck up. I’m thinking of asking to have her transferred.”  
  
And they laughed and left, heels clicking-   
  
What kind of swordsinger wears heels? She thought bitterly. She sank back down to the floor, staring at her knees.  
  
\---  
  
On Tuesday, Sirona didn’t teach class, and Rhen slept in.  
  
She woke to a knock at her door and dragged herself blearily from bed.  
  
It was Neya, one of the office women-  
  
“I’m sorry, miss. We forgot to tell you that your schedule’s been modified, you have a class Tuesday afternoons.”  
  
“Guh?”  
  
“We gave you a schedule,” Neya said, patiently. “But there’s been a change. So I’m notifying you now, because otherwise you might not know to go there. It’s our fault, really, but we didn’t get the chance to tell you earlier.” She paused, taking in Rhen’s bedraggled appearance. “I’m sorry. I did wait until I thought you’d certainly already be up.”  
  
“’M sorry,” Rhen mumbled incoherently, “I zortuh zleep a lot. When I can.” (It was a habit you picked up, adventuring).  
  
“I… I can tell. Have a good night- morning. Day. Thing.”  
  
“Shuuure..” Rhen said, and yawned as she closed the door.  
  
\---  
  
  
She woke with a start.  
  
Crud crud crud.  
  
How late was it?   
  
Sunlight was streaming through the windows and she vaguely remembered that there was something she had to do today.  
  
She glanced around frantically and saw a sheet of paper lying crumpled on her table.  
  
 **Notice: Schedule Modification**  
Date:  _Thirteenth of Landsmet_  
Teacher:  _Rhen Darzon_  
Schedule slot:  _12:30- 2:00_  
Change from:  _Free_  
To:  _Beginners Sorcery, Honors Class, Room 243_  
  
Huh? But she didn’t do sorcery, she was a swordsinger…  
  
What time was it? Room 243 was all the way on the other side of the building, she was…  
  
How had she even slept so long? She though, furiously, as she raced to get dressed.  
  
\---  
  
“Today we’re going to be learning something absolutely essential to a successful sorcerer. As I can’t supervise you all at once, I have requested an assistant, and…” Lars paused, smoothly, just as the door slammed open, “here she is, just a few minutes late. I’ll forgive her this once, but I hope you all understand that for any of you that would be an immediate tardy.”  
  
The class laughed.   
  
Rhen, doubled over from breathing too hard, shot him a death glare. He smirked.  
  
The class listened attentively as he explained that, while sorcery was not as obsessed with waving about things as swordsinging was- the class snickered, and Rhen rolled her eyes- it still did rely on an object as a conduit of power and as such it was essential that a sorcerer never let go of his staff or wand in a battle situation.   
  
“You’ll be expected to practice your grip with these rubber balls- Ms. Darzon, could you hand them out?” He asked, gesturing to a pile of ping-pong sized balls. She stared defiantly at him for a moment, and then, as he waited patiently, drooped. Glumly, she began gathering the balls to give out.   
  
“Thank you, Ms. Darzon.”  
  
 _You are so so so dead, Lars Tenobor_ , she thought, viciously.  
  
“But that’s work you’ll be doing on your own. For today, I’d just like to make sure that you are all holding your staffs or wands correctly.” He said, unaware of the curses she was mentally wishing would fall on his head.  
  
Rhen watched sourly as the class lined up obediently. Why were they behaving so well?  _Her_  class could barely get through a simple set of instructions without dissolving into a group of boys fighting and girls shrieking. But Lars… held the kids captivated, brought them to order with just a well-placed  _look_.  
  
A ball had fallen off a desk. She reached to pick it up and the other balls fell out her hands, scattering all over the floor. She scrambled to pick them up, scooping them into her skirt.   
  
“You missed one,” Lars said, and she turned to see him resting his boot-tip lightly on a ball that had rolled away. She waited for a moment, and then realized that he wasn’t moving to pick it up.  
  
Face burning, she stood up slowly, skirt gathered in her hands. She tossed her head, face held high, trying not to look as mortified as she felt. Then she knelt down by his feet and scooped up the ball, half expecting him to snatch it away at the last second. She glared at him as she got up, and turned sharply on her heel to finish placing the balls on each desk.  
  
“Now, back to what I was saying…” she heard him say.  
  
\---  
  
He could feel her glare burning into him even with his back turned.  
  
“Lars Tenobor.” She said.  
  
He turned leisurely around.  
  
“Yes, Ms. Darzon?”  
  
She sputtered. “Don’t you- Don’t you  _dare_  ‘Ms. Darzon’ me, you insufferable bastar-”  
  
He couldn’t help himself. “Would you rather I call you Peta?” He asked, grinning.  
  
She snapped her mouth shut.   
  
“I-” She said, and, closing her eyes, breathed in deeply. “You didn’t need me for this class. You were fine on your own.”  
  
“Why, but Master Harald himself agreed that I could use assistance, being such a… young  _teacher_ , you know.” The extra emphasis was maybe laying it on a bit too strong.  
  
“I hate you,” she hissed.  
  
He didn’t really have a response to that, so he simply smiled in the patronizing way he knew she hated and turned back to get his stuff.  
  
“If that really is all you have to say…” he said, not trusting his voice to keep steady.  
  
“No,” she said, “I also hope that you writhe in agony for a billion years. So there.” And she stomped out of the room. 


	5. Chapter 5

She knew something was up as soon as she walked into the classroom and saw Sirona smiling and waving to her.  
  
“Good morning?” She said, confused.  
  
“ _Rhen_ ,” Sirona said, steering her towards the front of the classroom, “I’m so  _glad_  you’re here. Isn’t that right, Master Harald?”  
  
And Rhen turned and saw Master Harald sitting in a corner desk, looking… well, stone-faced, but that was pretty standard Master Harald for you.  
  
“Class,” Sirona said, “Master Harald is here to check up on how well we’ve been doing lately.” The class shifted uncomfortably in their seats.  
  
“And I thought… I thought, wow, isn’t this a marvelous opportunity to have Rhen here show us what to do! After all, she certainly seems to know the material much better than a lot of people here.”  
  
“I… what, no,” Rhen said, “I can’t possibly-”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rhen, why suddenly so shy?   
  
“I haven’t even- I don’t have anything prepared,” she whispered desperately to Sirona.  
  
“Oh please. If you had any ability at all you would be able to think of something,” Sirona said, dismissively.  
  
Rhen, realizing that no one was going to rescue her, turned towards the class.   
  
“Alright. Um,” she said, swallowing. Her throat was suddenly very dry.  
  
“So, I guess we can go over some basic vocal techniques…”  
  
“We already learned that last Thursday!” A kid called out. Several other kids snickered.  
  
She flushed.  
  
“I- Alright, I’m sorry then, I suppose we’ll go a little more advanced than that…” When had it become so hard to breathe? Four rows of kids staring at her and all she could think was  _I can’t do this I can’t do this someone help me I can’t do this_. But Sirona was yawning and staring out the window, and Master Harald was… taking notes.   
  
Rhen felt her heart sink to subterranean levels.  
  
“Um. An important dance to know is the waltz.” The class stared at her impassively. In the back of the classroom one of the girls whispered something to her friend and giggled.   
  
Rhen swallowed.  
  
“The waltz is structured like a square,” She managed. “You step forward with the left foot, and turn as you step with the right…” She felt herself moving to her own instructions, “and as you are moving you bring the sword up for the left, slash with the right, and now you’re stepping back with the right and pulling back the sword at the same time, hopefully-”  _hopefully killing the monster in one slash, but if not, the great thing about the waltz is that it’s a box-step and really like a double-slash move, you barely need to_  sing _at all because the dancing part is so effective_  and she never got the chance to say that because:  
  
“But I don’t  _understaaaand_ ,” a girl in the second row whined.   
  
“It’s- look,” she said, and walked over to the kid’s seat, “stand up, here, I’ll show you,” and she guided the girl through the steps- “See, that’s how you do it, it’s not so hard, a little practice and it-”  
  
“I don’t understand  _either_ ,” a boy said.  
  
“Don’t be stupid, it’s obvious,” the boy sitting behind him said.  
  
“No it isn’t, it makes no sense!” The boy said, turning to shout, and the whole class began to talk at once.  
  
“Stop! Stop, QUIET!” Rhen screamed. The class reluctantly subsided.  
  
“Look, I’ll explain it again. All you need to do is bring your left foot forward, like this, look, it’s really not that hard once you break it into steps, and then you bring your right foot-”  
  
It was all so clear and obvious in her head, why couldn’t she find the right words to explain it?  
  
And her eyes were stinging and she couldn’t- she couldn’t cry in front of everyone, she couldn’t give Sirona the satisfaction.  
  
Master Harald got up to leave the classroom- “I have some other classes to monitor,” he said, as he left, glancing at Rhen. As soon as he was gone Sirona stepped in and quieted the class down.  
  
“Thank you, Ms. Darzon, that was quite enough,” she said, shooting Rhen a triumphant look. “Now children, what we were  _supposed_  to learn today was…”  
  
\----  
  
He saw her leaving the classroom and paused, waited patiently for her to notice him standing there.  
  
She bumped into him as if he wasn’t there.  
  
“Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was goi-” She began, and then looked up.   
  
“Oh.  _Lars._ ”  
  
“Well, hello to you too. How was class?”  
  
“Go jump in a sewage tank.”  
  
“It was just an innocent question!” He protested. God, she was so touchy lately.   
  
“Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said, smiling up at him, “it must be  _my_  fault that I don’t want to discuss my problems with someone who will probably collapse laughing at them.”  
  
Oh. So that was it.  
  
He thought that maybe he should apologize, but it stuck in his throat.  
  
“I… I won’t laugh at you this time.”  
  
“Good. I’m glad. Have fun not laughing,” she said, and stalked away.  
  
“Wait,” he said, striding to catch up with her. She walked faster.   
  
“I have longer legs than you,” he pointed out, and she broke into a run.  
  
He started after her, but just then a classroom door opened and an entire class of advanced sorcery students spilled out. Cursing, he tried to press past them, and finally broke free of the pack to see Rhen rounding a corner at the end of the hall.  
  
He raced down the hall and turned the corner without slowing, raced down the next hallway and paused, trying to figure out which way she had turned. To the right was a dead end. He turned and ran left.  
  
For a minute he thought that he’d maybe he’d made the wrong choice, that she had thought to hide in a classroom down the right corridor and waited for him to pass. But then he saw her, headed towards the back stairs.  
  
With a burst of energy he surged forward. She turned on the second flight and saw him coming.  
  
“Stop chasing me!” She shouted, as she ran up the last flight. Was she  _crying_?  
  
“Stop running away!” He called, between gasps of air.  
  
“No!”  
  
“Then I’ll just have to-” up the stairs, past three students standing around laughing about something- “Keep chasing you, huh?”  
  
Abruptly she turned towards him, buffeting him with punches and kicks.  
  
“Why doesn’t anyone leave me alone?” She screamed, “Why can’t everyone just…”  
  
He raised his arms to defend himself. “Alright, alright,” he panted, “look- I’m leaving you alone, now can you tell me what’s going on?”  
  
“I…” She said, still breathing heavily, and then shook her head. “Forget it. There’s no way I’m telling you.” She had definitely been crying, her eyes were still wet, and as he watched she reached up and angrily rubbed them with her sleeve.  
  
She walked away, sniffling, but this time let him keep pace with her.  
  
\---  
  
When they reached her apartment she turned to face him, blocking the way in.  
  
“Alright,” she said, “You’ve had your fun. I’m humiliated, you probably feel happy, now it’s time to leave.”   
  
“I don’t understand what’s going on with you,” He said, pleadingly.  
  
“ _Going on with me_? Oh, I’m sorry that I’m not being perfectly happy and joyful-”  
  
“Rhen, at least try to be  _rational_ -”  
  
“And you wouldn’t understand because your class  _listens_  to you and  _respects_  you and actually understands what you’re saying! And I just wanted to-”   
  
He didn’t understand, she had that right. He didn’t even know what she was talking about, although it sounded like it had something to do with her class. But he was feeling extremely uncomfortable, watching her, her expression was making his brain shut down and all he could think was that he needed her to stop looking that miserable.  
  
“Why don’t you take a break, go to Dameon and have him-”  
  
Her face just…  _crumpled_.  
  
“I can’t, I can’t, oh god Lars I am such an idiot,” and she was sobbing hysterically and he had no idea what he had just said to make her react like that.  
  
Come to think of it…  
  
“And where is Dameon, anyway? It’s been a week, why hasn’t he shown up yet?”  
  
“Lars, you slow, stupid idiot,” Rhen said, still sobbing, “Dameon isn’t coming.” And for a few moments she seemed to be trying to say something that he couldn’t understand because she kept dissolving in tears.   
  
Finally she managed: “Have you completely not noticed that I’m not wearing a ring anymore?”  
  
He hadn’t. He wasn’t going to say that, though. “Oh god, Rhen, I’m so sorry-”  
  
“Why? Don’t be,” she said, and was for a moment strangely calm. “I’m the one who left him, and came here, and-” There came the sobs again.  
  
“Rhen,” he said, and very tentatively reached out to touch her shoulder, “it’s okay.”  
  
She didn’t stop crying.  
  
“I’m sure he’ll understand and take you back, he loves you very much. Of course he does, who wouldn’t? He’d be an idiot not to-”  
  
“I don’t want to go back!” she shrieked. “I only just managed to get away in time in the first place!”  
  
“Then… then I don’t understand,” Lars said, completely confused. “What are you crying about?”  
  
“Nothing. Everything. The teacher I’m assisting publicly humiliated me in front of Master Harald and I’m going to get fired and then I’m going to go broke and die of starvation and absolutely no one will care!”  
  
Lars blinked. “What?”  
  
“I don’t know why I’m still talking to you!” She screeched, and ran into the apartment, slamming the door. A few seconds later she emerged again. “And why are you still standing there?!”   
  
“Rhen,” he said, “Rhen, how about we just sit down in a restaurant and you calm down and tell me what happened?”  
  
She stared wildly at him for a second and then moved to slam the door again.  
  
“My treat!” He burst out desperately, “I’ll pay for it, the entire thing, order whatever you want!” and as she paused to look at him with reddened eyes he felt a huge wave of relief. Oh, thank god Rhen Darzon still liked free food as much as she always had. 


	6. Chapter 6

“Alright,” he said, when they were done being seated and Rhen had ordered pretty much everything on the menu. “What exactly happened?”  
  
“When are they going to be done preparing the food?” She asked, looking around.  
  
“ _Rhen_ ” He said. “You were bawling hysterically just fifteen minutes ago. I’m buying you a meal, so you owe me an explanation.”  
  
She grimaced. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Just want to pretend it never happened.” And then, in a rush of words, she said: “Lars, I suck at this. At this whole teaching thing, I totally wasn’t cut out for it and I wanna quit.”  
  
“Wait, just… backtrack a moment. Why do you want to quit? I thought you were really excited about this.”  
  
“Yeah, well… I give up.” She stared morosely at her empty plate. “I just want to eat now, okay? Thinking about it is dumb.”  
  
“I never realized you were this pathetic,” he said, and she snapped her head up to stare at him.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“So all those big promises,” he said, gesturing grandly towards the ceiling, “that was all just a bunch of crap?”  
  
“It’s not like that…” She protested.   
  
“Oh, really? What’s not like that? You’re just a week into the job and already you’re crying like a baby. Wah, wah, ickle little Rhenny-poo is so upset, she’s gonna quit.”  
  
“Shut up,” she said, glaring at him. “You don’t even know what happened.”  
  
“Because you won’t even tell me! All you can do is moan about when the food is coming. Wow, Rhen. Just wow.”   
  
She flushed at the sarcasm.  
  
“Basically, I…” she mumbled, trailing off.  
  
“This had better be good,” he said, goading her.  
  
“It-!” she began, indignantly, then wilted. She looked down at her plate, fiddling with her fork.   
  
“I’m an assistant for Sirona,” she said. “You know that.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“She  _hates_  me.”  
  
“That’s all?” He asked, eyebrows raised. “I thought you could deal with a little hatred.”  
  
“Well, you certainly gave me a lot of practice-” She began, and then stopped herself. “It’s not that I can’t deal with it. I was dealing with it, even if it was miserable. It’s just that-”  
  
“Excuse me, ma’am. Did you order the Smoked Veldtian Salmon, Lemon Artichoke Chicken, Chef’s Special Twisted Chips, Pecan Chicken Lime Salad, Grilled Pepper Steak, and Cheese Lentil soup?”   
  
“Um… yes. Also a Berry Stick.”  
  
“Your orders will be arriving presently,” the waiter said. Lars wondered if Rhen noticed the use of the plural.  
  
“Thank you.” She smiled at him (Apparently not, then). The waiter bowed and left.  
  
“You were saying...?” Lars prompted, impatient, and then groaned as a different waiter placed down a steaming plate of food by Rhen’s seat. He barely noticed another plate being placed in front of him, he was so busy fuming.  
  
Just great. He was never going to wriggle the story out of her, at this rate.  
  
For a few minutes there was no sound at their table but that of a million cows chewing their cud simultaneously, emanating entirely from Rhen’s side of the table.  
  
“Y’know,” she said finally, around a mouthful of meat, “I only really started  _liking_  food onshe I wazsh a slave. Because there wazsn’t ever very much and sho I started to really appreciate it when I had it.”  
  
“Mhmm,” he said, watching her decimate the piece of steak. He didn’t want to hear about what it had been like when she was a slave, it always made him cringe. He hadn’t been a particularly nice human being back then. (Nowadays, of course, he was absolutely perfect in all respects, but that didn’t make remembering his less-than-perfect days any more pleasant).  
  
“What’sh wrong? Why aren’t you eating?” She said, gesturing with her fork. In the process, a glob of gravy dropped and fell onto his bread.  
  
He winced. “No, it’s nothing. I’ve never had a big appetite, don’t mind me.”  
  
“Figures,” she said, having moved on to next plate of food, which arrived as they were talking. “You’re a total pansy.”   
  
He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly she sighed and slumped back in her chair.  
  
“I don’t really know what happened to me,” she said, softly. “I’m not really sure when my life got out of control, but it did and now I’m trying to figure out how to live normally and I realize I’ve forgotten. And I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to find my own direction before, Lars, but now I did, I took things in my own hands, and I’m… I’m so scared I made the wrong choice.”  
  
He started to respond but she cut him off.  
  
“I’m not talking about Dameon right now, so please don’t start.” He hadn’t actually been about to say anything about Dameon, but he let her continue anyway.   
  
“I mean, Dameon would have been easier, yes. It would have been the same thing as always, people telling Rhen what to do and Rhen doing it. It would have been easy but it would have been miserable and I’d probably have been dead of it within a year.”  
  
“I thought you liked Dameon.”  
  
“I-” She seemed like she was about to say something, and then stopped. “Never mind. The point is, it wasn’t what I wanted. And just once, when I’m, you know, deciding my  _entire future_ , can’t I have what I really want?”  
  
He felt like he should argue with her, explain that it was stupid to leave a man you loved just to prove some point to yourself. Well, maybe he should, but he wasn’t going to. He had never liked the priest and he had been miserable when Rhen had declared she was marrying him, even if he would never, ever admit that. Dameon could give his own arguments, if he ever decided to come after his wife-  
  
As if she had read his mind, Rhen said suddenly: “I didn’t even marry him. I ran away before that. And he’s not coming after me because he’s not the type, and because I left him saddled with the responsibilities of an entire kingdom.” She paused, and smirked. “That might have been a bit nasty on my part, actually. You must’ve rubbed off on me.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, and looked down at his plate, trying to hide his grin.  
  
“What’s with you?” Rhen said, suspicious. “You’re being weird.”  
  
“Nothing,” he said.  
  
She looked at him for a moment and then apparently decided to continue.  
  
“I came here. I could’ve gone somewhere else, I dunno. Could’ve gone to Veldt and gotten myself a whole load of husbands to replace Dameon, had I wanted. But I instinctively thought of here. And now I dunno if I made the right decision.”  
  
 _Finally_  they were back on topic.  
  
“What happened to make you think that?”   
  
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, gesturing dismissively. “You have such an easy time teaching, you have such an easy time at everything…”  
  
“And…?” He said, feeling his irritation rising.  
  
“Today I got the opportunity to teach I’d been dreaming of and I froze up in front of the entire class, and Master Harald, too.”  
  
“Why was Master Harald there?” He said, completely confused.  
  
“I dunno, he was inspecting, or something. But that was why Sirona made me teach, because he was there, so I could mess up and look like an idiot-”  
  
“Wait, what? What has Sirona got to do with this?”   
  
“Sirona is the one who made me teach, because she hates me!”  
  
Lars pinched the bridge of his nose, trying futilely to follow what Rhen was saying.  
  
“I’m sorry.” He said. “If you could maybe start over, from the beginning?”  
  
She gave him a look of utter disgust.  
  
“ _Fine_. I walked into my classroom today and immediately knew something was wrong…”  
  
\---   
  
When she finished telling him the whole sorrowful tale, at one point breaking into tears again (in between her third and fourth plate of food, washed down with that really delicious red wine they served here), she waited expectantly for him to offer her some sympathy.  
  
He looked… annoyed.  
  
“What?” She said, defensive.  
  
“I don’t understand why it took you so long to say that. You could have just gotten to the point. Your boss hates you, she tried to embarrass you in front of Master Harald, you let her embarrass you.”  
  
“First of all, I did just say that to begin with, remember? But you’re so  _stupid_  you didn’t get it, so I had to explain. And second of all, I didn’t  _let_  her embarrass me. It’s not my fault, I don’t get why you’re trying to blame me.”  
  
“I’m not ‘trying to blame you’,” he began.  
  
“Yes you are!” She said. “What, did you bring me out here just to make me feel even worse?” There were tears welling up in her eyes again, and she blinked them back furiously.   
  
Damn him.  
  
“Now wait just a- I didn’t bring you out here to make you feel bad. I was… I was…” He swallowed, apparently unable to bring himself to say the rest of the sentence.  
  
“You were  _what_? Gloating over the fact that you’ll be able to win the bet now? Telling yourself that you were right all along and I’ll never amount to anything?”  
  
“That’s not it at all, you’re getting all worked up about-”  
  
“Well, screw you!” She practically shrieked. “I’m not going down that quickly. I’m Rhen Darzon, I’ve already saved the entire stupid thrice-cursed world, so you can just take your stupid… stupid…  _face_ , and go… cry in a corner or something.”  
  
“Oh, shut up,” he said, “I just paid for you to eat, not one meal, oh no, but  _six_ , and all you can do is rant and rave about-”  
  
“Did you just say something about my eating habits?”  
  
“Yes,” he said, standing up, “yes I did, you gorge yourself like a pig and it’s disgusting-”  
  
“At least I stay  _skinny!_ ” She said, standing up as well. “And I don’t eat like this all the time!”  
  
“Oh, so you only stuff yourself when you’re not the one paying, that’s  _so_  much better-”  
  
“Yeah, well- well you’re just a stuck-up, arrogant, spoiled rotten brat, so shut up!”  
  
“That’s a  _brilliant_  response. I am so hurt, look, I’m reeling, oh no, someone cast a healing spell, quick!”  
  
“If I had my sword on me I’d beat you up right now, I would.”  
  
“Oooh, I am so scared, look at me, I’m simply quaking with fear.”  
  
“You… I…  _Bastard_ ,” she hissed, and stormed out.  
  
\---  
  
She walked into the school building still fuming.  
  
“Rhen!” Master Harald said. “Just the person I wanted to see.” 


	7. Chapter 7

“Master Harald!” she said, forcing a smile. (Not now, not now, I can’t deal with this right now, she thought desperately.)  
  
“I wanted to discuss something with you,” Master Harald continued, and her heart sank.  
  
“Oh, I- ‘Discuss’, that’s very... I hope it’s not something bad?” She said at last, with a little giggle.  
  
Master Harald frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t say bad…”  
  
Rhen closed her eyes. Maybe if she just… counted to three, she would wake up and the past 24 hours would turn out to have been a horrible dream.  
  
“Rhen?” Master Harald said. “Are you coming?”  
  
She opened her eyes. “What? Oh… Yeah, I’m coming,” she said, and miserably followed him to his office.  
  
“So,” he said, sitting down at his desk. “I spoke with Sirona today.”  
  
She gulped.  
  
“Um. You did? That’s… that’s…”  
  
“I have decided that you might not be suitable, personality-wise, for teaching a class.”  
  
Funny, how something she’d been telling herself for the past hour could sound so awful coming from someone else’s mouth.  
  
“No, I- Master Harald, I’m just getting used to it, it’ll be fine-”  
  
“So,” he repeated, “I spoke to Sirona.”  
  
He paused. Rhen could hear the clock ticking, could feel the floorboards shifting ever so slightly.  
  
So this was what it felt like to have your dreams crushed. Sort of like staring into an endless black pit, and the silence and the misery was like a stadium of people yelling “Jump! Jump! Jump!”  
  
There was nothing she could say. All the protests had died before they could reach her lips. This was pretty much it.  
  
“I understand, Master Harald,” she said, and noticed distantly how dead her voice sounded. “I guess I’ll… go clean out my room…” she said, surprised by how painful it was to force the words out. Had it been a week ago that she had been so excited about getting an apartment? What a stupid little girl she’d been.  
  
“What do you mean?” Master Harald said.  
  
Rhen blinked. “Well, if I don’t have a job here anymore-”  
  
“You think I’m going to let one of the most talented swordsingers this Academy had ever produced walk away?” He said. It was his tone of voice more than anything that got through to her- somewhere between amused and incredulous, even if his face was still as perfectly deadpan as always.  
  
“But… But you just said that I-”  
  
“That you pretty clearly can’t teach a class, yes. That doesn’t mean there isn’t what you could be doing for us here.”   
  
She straightened up proudly. “Master Harald, if you’ll excuse me, but I don’t want a consolation job. I have a certain dream and I can’t-”  
  
“I would not do you the injustice of offering you a ‘consolation job’, Rhen. I am thinking specifically of something you are uniquely suited to do.”  
  
She stared at him.  
  
“Would it… would it include the possibility of eventually becoming High Swordsinger?” She blurted out, and then with a gasp covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that.  
  
Master Harald stared at her for a moment and then very slowly began to chuckle.  
  
“I see you have very grand dreams,” he said.  
  
She flushed. “I didn’t mean… I’m not trying to be disrespectful or anything, of course I’m far too young, it’s just a… just a dream…” She trailed off.  
  
“Well,” he said, “Who knows? Maybe you will, someday. But if so,” he said, expression stern, “standard protocol is that you will need a recommendation from us first.”  
  
“Um,” she squeaked.  
  
“As I have already said, I don’t think you are suited to teaching. It takes a very specific set of skills to do that, not just swordsinging. But I do think you would probably make an excellent tutor.”  
  
“Tutor?” She repeated, numbly.  
  
“There are certain students in Shadwood Academy who are… unique. Difficult, if I may be frank. But I think that you… and your unique experiences… would make an excellent match. I noticed today that your style is more suited to one-on-one interactions. I have already checked with Sirona and she has agreed to give you up as an assistant.”  
  
“Agreed?” It was barely a question.  
  
“Yes. With some enthusiasm, I noticed. She also said some things it is not necessary to repeat.”  
  
“I would… I would be tutoring students?”   
  
“It  _can_  be a difficult, time-consuming job,” Master Harald said. “If you’re unwilling, I suppose I could-”   
  
“Tutoring?” She said.  
  
“ _Yes_ , Rhen, tutoring.”  
  
“One-on-one? Not in front of a classroom?”  
  
“If you have been listening to a single thing I have said this entire time-”  
  
“I… I… I’m so happy right now I think I might hug you.”  
  
“Please don’t.” Master Harald said. “I take it you are interested in the job, then?”  
  
“Yes yes yes yes please.”  
  
“Alright,” he said, almost smiling ( _very_  impressive for Master Harald). “Well then, I will have the paperwork delivered to you later this evening.”  
  
\---  
  
She walked up to her apartment wallowing in the glory of the opportunity she’d been granted- an escape from Sirona, an escape from the classroom she hated, an opportunity to actually teach the way she wanted instead of being forced to parrot things she disagreed with… even the students she was being assigned, who would probably not be the kind that mindlessly went along with whatever an adult said…  
  
Actually, she could see how that could become a problem. But.  
  
But she hadn’t anticipated that things could possible turn out this well. This was much, much better than she had dreamed of. She hadn’t even thought tutoring was a possibility but as soon as it was presented it seemed obvious, that she’d prefer the chance to individually work with someone and to have time to explain, carefully, exactly what she meant instead of having to go with what would work for the majority of the class even if it left some kids behind.  
  
She was so distracted by it that she didn’t think of Lars until she reached her apartment.  
  
That nasty, horrid little…  
  
Why was she so angry? She couldn’t remember anymore. There was just a white-hot rage coursing through her, so violently strong it left the tiny part of her mind that was standing apart from the storm rather surprised.  
  
He had taken her out to dinner.  
  
She wasn’t sure why.  
  
Everything else fit into what she expected of Lars. Gloating at her misery? Nothing new there. Making nasty comments? Practically standard.  
  
This was Lars, for heaven’s sake. The Lars that had taken Rhen the innocent, happy girl and tortured her into Rhen the angry, repressed teen. Admittedly some other people had been involved as well, notably Ahriman, the slave trader… But it had always been Lars she had blamed, in the back of her mind.  
  
The realization gave her pause. She hadn’t- She hadn’t really realized that she hated him this much.   
  
No, she hadn’t realized. Adventuring had held it off for a little while. She had been too full of what needed to be done to have any room left for what needed to be felt.  
  
When she felt herself cringing when people looked at her, she was always aware that once upon a time she hadn’t been so shy. No, as a child she had been very outgoing and talkative. Introversion hadn’t come naturally, it had been forced upon her by a year and a half of slavery in which she had been harshly punished whenever she dared to open her mouth. And when at last she had gotten a chance to escape and be free, he had followed her and made her life miserable once more. She knew that there had been happy, wonderful moments during her time at the Academy, but what she remembered most vividly were the miserable ones.  
  
And in her mind Lars had, for a very long time, been the cause of all that misery.  
  
So of course she hated him. It made perfect sense.  
  
It was just that… Somehow, things weren’t the same anymore. It was all well and good to say that her feelings had been held in suspension during her adventure, but life had not. Lars had… Lars had apologized, as if that would ever come close to being enough-   
  
But what more could he do? He couldn’t turn back time, he couldn’t… He had fought by her side all the way until the very end, he had been the only one who had never, ever left her, even if it was only because of his stupid, stubborn pride. And she had said she’d forgiven him. She had meant it, too.  
  
Only… that sometimes she got confused. She was so used to hating him. She had been for such a long time…  
  
And why had he brought her to that restaurant anyway? She struggled to come up with an answer, with no success. And when she finally went to sleep that night it was still turning round and round inside her head.  
  
\---   
  
At three in the morning she sat up bolt upright in bed.  
  
Oh God.  
  
She had walked out on him.  
  
The hatred and anger from earlier that evening had left her, like a bad dream or a bout of insanity. She was left cold-sober, staring blankly up at the ceiling, pretty much ready to curl up into a ball and die.  
  
What the hell was  _wrong_  with her? First of all, she didn’t hate Lars. She hadn’t, for quite some time now. You run around the world with someone through all kinds of hell, you don’t hold on to little grudges from back when you were just kids. She was supposed to be beyond that. That day in their house in Sedona when he had apologized she had been fully aware of what she was doing when she had forgiven him, and she’d thought herself mature enough to go through with it anyway.  
  
And last night…  
  
He had gone to the trouble of taking her out to a restaurant and suddenly she realized that he had probably done it to comfort her, for reasons presumably understood only by Lars Tenobor.  
  
And then she’d had a breakdown and walked out on him.  
  
Well, of course she had, she’d been miserable and depressed and positive that she was going to be fired, or that worse she was going to have to face Sirona again the next day.  
  
But now neither was going to happen. The future was bright and rosy and wonderful, and she had behaved perfectly abominably towards him.  
  
He  _had_  behaved perfectly abominably back, but he was  _Lars_ , wasn’t he? Acting like an insufferable jerk was his default mode, he probably had it etched into his DNA. She’d spent three years traveling the globe with the guy, she had thought she’d finally learned how to look past the… the… insufferable jerkiness.  
  
In any case she certainly should already have known that it took him special effort just to act like a normal human being. And he’d probably been trying, and in any case there was no denying that he had in fact paid for a meal for her, which meant that in any case she owed him  _some_  gratitude, not just a…  
  
Walking out on him.  
  
She rolled over and stuffed her face into her pillow, willing herself back to sleep. Tomorrow she’d find him and… sort this out, somehow. 


	8. Chapter 8

Sunlight streamed through the wide glass windows of his apartment, and seemed almost to focus on Lars’s bed.  
  
“Mnnghghg,” he grumbled, pulling his large fluffy down blanket over his head.  
  
A moment later he threw it off again. Too stuffy, couldn’t breathe.  
  
Outside several birds began singing. It could possibly have been pretty had there been only one, but as it were they each clashed horribly with all the rest and the combined effect was something like a rusty saw.  
  
Oh, dammit all, he was going to have to get out of bed, wasn’t he.  
  
He rolled himself off of the bed and onto the floor, and lay there for several minutes, still contentedly swaddled in his blanket. He was starting to gently sort of drift… back to… sleep… when a draft began blowing from under the door.  
  
Eyes still firmly shut, he managed to struggle into a sitting position, reluctantly peeling the blanket away.  
  
He rose with a yawn, stretching, and padded on bare feet to the bathroom, where he washed his face. He paused for a moment to glance in the mirror- Why yes, he was every bit as good-looking as he had been every day before. And brilliant, too, with a charming personality. Practically perfect in all ways, actually.  
  
There was absolutely no reason Rhen Darzon shouldn’t like him.   
  
At this thought he scowled. It wasn’t like it mattered to him whether she did or not. And if it did it was strictly as…  _friends_ , as she so frequently insisted on putting it. Just friends.  
  
But it didn’t- matter to him, that was- so that was irrelevant in any case.  
  
And now he was in a bad mood. Just great. Fresh scrambled eggs on toast did not improve his mood, either- he ate them sullenly, mouthful at a time.  
  
Time to go. His bag was already leaning against the door, prepared with all the stuff he needed for the day. Lars liked to be ready in advance.  
  
He swept angrily out of the apartment, door slamming behind him, a dramatic exit that got ruined by his bag-strap getting stuck in the door.  
  
\---  
  
The next morning she found herself walking to her usual classroom without realizing it.  
  
She was a hallway away before it dawned on her that this wasn’t her classroom anymore. The thought filled her with such joy she was surprised. It was like a weight she hadn’t really noticed had slipped off her. She turned on her heel and walked away, humming.  
  
But of course there was someplace else she had to be. She walked quickly down to the office, and waited on a rather short line.  
  
“Oh, Rhen,” the woman at the desk said, looking vaguely familiar. “I was expecting you.”  
  
“Um…” Rhen said.  
  
“You’re switching to Assisted Studies, right? I have the student files and room key for you. If you need any additional supplies you can always ask, in general we’re pretty lenient as to what can be used.”  
  
“Oh, thanks.” Rhen said. “Wait, so when do I have to…”  
  
“The schedule is attached to the folder,” the woman said, pointing. Rhen looked down and saw that, indeed, there was a blue sheet of paper attached to the top folder with a schedule neatly printed… Her eyes skimmed immediately to the current day of the week.  
  
Wait, what?  
  
“I’m sorry?” The woman said, and Rhen realized she had spoken her thought out loud.  
  
“It’s just… I’m sorry, is there a mistake on this schedule?”  
  
“Not that I’m aware of, no. Is there some reason it should be?”  
  
“No, no, I’m just- kinda used to having morning classes, is all.”  
  
“You do, on Thursdays and Fridays. But today’s Wednesday.”  
  
“Oh. Oh. Um… So… I guess I don’t have anything until this afternoon? Sweeeeet.”  
  
The woman looked mildly taken aback. Rhen stared at her, puzzled. There was something…  
  
“I’m sorry,” Rhen blurted out, “but you look really, really familiar and I just can’t place it.”  
  
“Oh,” The woman says, looking a little surprised. “I’m surprised you remember. I’m Neya, I woke you up that day you were supposed to assist in Professor Tenobor’s class.”  
  
“Really? Oh right, I remember. Haha, fancy we’d meet again.”  
  
“It’s not actually that surprising, I do work here. It was bound to happen eventually.”  
  
“Well, anyway,” Rhen said, smiling. “It was nice meeting- I mean, seeing you again.”  
  
For a moment Neya looked like she was about to say something else, but then she stopped.  
  
“Anyway… Good luck,” Neya said.  
  
“Thanks!” Rhen said, surprised. She scooped up her papers and prepared to leave. “Well, see you around.”  
  
\---  
  
That had been nice. Neya seemed like a sweet person, actually. Rhen considered that for a moment as she sat on a sun-warmed bench in the front lounge. Hm.   
  
Anyway, there was something else on her mind right now. It wasn’t like she’d exactly forgotten, but even if she had Neya’s mentioning him by name would have reminded her.  
  
Lars.  
  
Dammit, she really didn’t want to deal with this. Just thinking about it filled her with an irrational sort of dread.   
  
Actually, though, now she had several hours free. So she could take her time and come up with some sort of plan.  
  
How to Apologize to a Sorceror. Yeah. She hadn’t a clue.   
  
Oh, well at least she didn’t have to…  
  
Some sixth sense of hers made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. She turned around slowly.  
  
Oh,  _damn_.  
  
There was no mistaking it. Coming through the school’s double-door entrance was the one and only person she most desperately didn’t want to see right now.  
  
Stupid, stupid fates. They probably hated her because she hadn’t followed the Oracle’s advice. Yeah, that was probably it.  
  
Otherwise how would you explain how Lars was coming straight at her, the sound his boots made each time they came in contact with the floor sort of like a death knell?  
  
“Um… H-Hi,” she managed weakly, leaping up.  
  
He didn’t even glance at her, just swept past like she wasn’t there.  
  
She stared blankly at his retreating back, and slowly slumped back into a sitting position.  
  
\---  
  
Alright. This wasn’t so bad.  
  
So he was clearly really, really furious with her. Fine. She would have been, too, had she been him.   
  
And possibly he didn’t want to see her ever again, and hated her guts.  
  
Fin. She would have been, too, had she-  
  
Dammit.  
  
Once upon a time she really wouldn’t have cared. But then, she could say ‘once upon a time’ about a lot of things.  
  
Once upon a time she wouldn’t have done anything. Once upon a time she would have pretended not to notice. Once upon a time she would have let him make the first move towards reconciliation.  
  
Well, once upon a time she’d been a heroine, saving the world. Once upon a time she’d loved Dameon. And now she wasn’t and she didn’t and it was time to grow the hell up.  
  
So she angrily blinked back the stinging beginnings of a tearfest and stood up. She was going to go for a walk to clear her head. Then she was going to apologize. No more beating around the bush.  
  
\---  
  
 _Why_  did he have to see her just then?   
  
He walked into his classroom in an awful mood, to find the usual kind of chaos that results form a teacher being a few minutes late.  
‘  
He cleared his throat. They settled down.  
  
“Don’t ask why I’m late,” He said, shortly. “Let’s get down to business. Everyone, have your staffs or wands out- We’ll be learning some more advanced control exercises today, I think you’re just about ready for them by now.”  
  
He felt himself growing less tense as he spoke. He didn’t need to think about her at all right now, he could just relax and enjoy teaching. And he really did enjoy teaching, it was one of many, many talents that came to him easily and-  
  
She’d been having difficulty with teaching, of course. He hadn’t really bothered himself about it, but last night it had seemed to him that maybe she wasn’t just having a  _little_  bit of difficulty after all. She had seemed so upset…  
  
And Rhen was the kind of person who bore with anything. That was what he’d come to admire about her, her perseverance and her optimism and dammit, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her!  
  
“Um, Professor?” He heard someone say, and he realized that he’d pressed too hard against the piece of chalk he’d been writing with and had snapped it in half.  
  
He went to his desk to take another piece, trying to look like nothing had happened.  
  
And why was she so upset, then? He refused to believe it was just some difficulties with the teaching job, she was obviously worried about something bigger than that. Nor did he understand what was going on with her and Dameon. He was beginning to feel guilty about restraining himself from encouraging her to return to him. It had been selfish of him, that on the basis of his own feelings he had allowed her to ignore hers… If she was with the guy she loved, she would be happy… Yeah, that was right, she would-  
  
“SNAP!” went the piece of chalk in his hand. This was getting ridiculous.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, to the class, “If you’ll please excuse me for just a moment…”   
  
He walked out, aware that behind him whispering was already starting, and headed straight to the water fountain.  
  
He drank it, forced himself to focus on the way it slid cool and refreshing down his throat. For good measure, he splashed some of it on his face as well.  
  
Now to go teach his class. And  _not_  think about Rhen Darzon, just this once.  
  
\---  
  
She couldn’t do it.  
  
She had waited outside his classroom for him to finish.  
  
But as soon as she had seen him begin to wrap up- as he placed the chalk back on the desk and headed towards the door- she had dashed away as fast as she could, heart pounding furiously.  
  
Apologizing was really  _hard_.  
  
Now she was sitting in the library, gazing down at her cup of coffee, trying to see the future in its swirls of creamy goodness.  
  
She was supposed to be looking at the papers Neya had given her, but thus far all she'd managed to do was stare blankly at the schedule for a good ten minutes now, interrupted by bouts of therapeutic coffee.  
  
What was she supposed to  _do_? Clearly the “charge ahead head-first” approach wasn’t going to work. How about… ambush? Kidnapping? What was  _wrong_  with her?  
  
All this…  _thinking_  was making her head ache. Stupid Lars was too complicated, dammit.  
  
Fine. She would try again. All she needed to do was-  
  
WHY was he coming into the library? What was he doing here? This wasn’t even funny, this wasn’t even funny, this was like one of those awful nightmares where that thing you never want to have happen repeats itself in an endless loop.  
  
Also known as running into Lars on a Bad Day, over and over.  
  
He probably hadn’t seen her yet. The library was angled so that a bookshelf would almost definitely be blocking his view of her right now. What should she do?  
  
This was the perfect opportunity to apologize, she realized suddenly. It had practically landed in her lap. So naturally, as he began walking towards the reception desk (and a straight line of sight towards her) she found herself diving under the table.  
  
Crouched there, staring at the pieces of dried, moldy gum people had stuck to the underside of the table, she found herself considering life. How beautiful, precious, and fleeting it was.  
  
“Hello,” Lars said, bending over to give her his most evil smile. “Care to explain why you are hiding under a table, Rhen Darzon?”  
  
…How she was going to be saying goodbye to it painfully soon.  
  
“AAAAH!” She screamed, instinctively jumping up. Which of course was a bad idea, seeing as there was a table in the way.  
  
“Ow…” She whimpered, curled up in a ball of pain.  
  
“Um… Rhen?” Lars said. For a moment he seemed more concerned than furious.  
  
One hand still gingerly covering her poor, injured head, she found herself nonetheless inching backwards.  
  
“Where are you going?” He asked, in the soft singsong voice Lars always used when planning something nefarious. Fear jolted her back to her senses and she found herself skittering out from under the table as fast as she could manage.  
  
Not fast enough, however. An iron grip latched around her ankle.  
  
“That looked like a pretty nasty bump you got there, I think you should probably have it checked out-”  
  
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” she found herself babbling frantically, “I behaved horribly last night I was completely over-reacting it was really nice of you to take me out  _please_  let go of me-”  
  
And as his expression changed from “inches-from-the-kill” to “confused shock”, she took advantage of his loosened grip, kicked out  _hard_ , and dashed from the room, still clutching her aching head.  
  
In- dammit, not much more than an hour and a half, how did time vanish so quickly?- she was going to have her first tutoring session ever, and she really needed to visit a healer first and get her head fixed. In more ways than one, probably.  
  
\---  
  
"...Wait, what?" Lars managed to get out, at last.  
  
In the distance, a cricket chirped. 


	9. Chapter 9

Some time later, Rhen stumbled wearily into classroom 112, formerly a large closet, and found, to her relief, that it was empty.  
  
She hadn’t yet had a chance to look at the files that Neya had handed her, which she’d rather been hoping to do before starting class. Well, fine. She had fifteen minutes left before her class was officially set to begin, which, while not ideal, was at least enough time to do a quick skim.  
  
Only of course she didn’t  _have_  the files anymore. She stared at her uselessly empty hands.   
  
Where had she left them? Mentally she retraced her steps since receiving the files.   
  
Small talk with a friendly first-year teacher on her way back into the building, as she was coming back from a visit to a healer near school, where she had needed to go because the school healer would have meant waiting in the back of a long line of students nursing injuries from over-enthusiastic practice… All this, of course, because she’d banged her head after diving under a table in the library where she had almost definitely left her files.  
  
Even if she ran, she wouldn’t be able to get to the library and back in fifteen minutes. She would have to wing it.  
  
Oh, yay. She sank down into the chair at the front of the very small classroom. Six desks had been arranged in two rows of three, with about three inches of breathing space between each one. She supposed that meant that at some point or other this room actually held seven people at once- she wondered how they didn’t asphyxiate.  
  
One second. Was  _she_  supposed to teach six students at once?   
  
She didn’t feel as if Neya had handed her six separate folders, but seeing as she had nearly suffered a minor concussion she wasn’t sure she trusted her memory.  
  
Wasn’t she supposed to be teaching one-on-one? Her schedule had said something about that, hadn’t it? Why, oh  _why_  had she left it upstairs?  
  
Time to calm down. She struggled to remember what the schedule had said- she’d stared at the blasted thing long enough, she really should remember, only of course her mind had been occupied with other things the entire time…  
  
Today was important. It was her first day all over again, and this time she didn’t want to mess up.  
  
“Good afternoon!” She said, jumping up and smiling, as a brown-haired boy poked his head in. “It’s really nice to meet you, I’m-”  
  
He blinked, turning his head from side to side. “Oops. Wrong room,” he said, and backed away.   
  
She almost called after him, to ask him if perhaps he was mistaken. But that would have been pathetic.  
  
It was 12:45, wasn’t it? That was when she was supposed to be here, right? Where  _were_  they?  
  
She sat back down and waited, and waited, for what felt like hours.  
  
At 12:55 someone came hurtling in through the door so fast that for a moment Rhen only saw a hazy afterimage.  
  
“Hi!” Said the girl, jumping up and down in place. “I’msorryI’mlate!”  
  
“Um,” Rhen said.  
  
“BasicallyalotofthingshappenedonmywayoverhereandIkindakeptgettingdistractedbecausetherewasthiskittytrappedinatreeand…"  
  
Rhen’s brain tried feebly to catch up with what her ears were hearing, and gave up. The bizarre thing was that as the wave of words washed over her it became slowly possible for her to distinguish individual phrases.  
  
Finally the girl, apparently out of breath, stopped talking for a moment to sit down in one of the desks. While sitting she somehow managed to sprawl out, long legs splayed and arms dangling.  
  
“So what are we learning today?” She asked, still in the super-fast blur that was apparently her only means of communicating.  
  
“I… think today is just for. Um. Getting to know you.” Rhen said, still a little dazed. “At least I’m pretty sure it said ‘General Meeting’ on the schedule… I’m sorry,” she said, “I got some papers from the office but I kind of left them somewhere due to various circumstances, so I’m just going to be, um, making today up as I go along. On that thought, may I know your name?”  
  
“Kylie,” the girl said, and flashed Rhen a huge grin. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs…”  
  
“Ms,” Rhen said. “Ms. Darzon. But that sounds kind of weird so I guess you can just call me Rhen, okay?” She smiled back at the girl. It was hard not to. Kylie smiled with every fiber of her being radiating joy, it made you feel happy just seeing it.  
  
“Fantastic. An inept teacher and the idiot girl,” someone muttered from the doorway, and Rhen turned to see a scowling blond boy enter the classroom. His face shimmered weirdly, and it took her a moment to realize that that was because he had a silvery tattoo climbing up the right side of his face.  
  
“Hio!” Kylie said, apparently not at all bothered by the ‘idiot girl’ bit. “We’re going to be in the same class? I’m so excited!”  
  
“I’m not,” the boy said acidly, but his expression, a sort of pleased half-smile, didn’t quite match his tone of voice.  
  
“Me’n Hio have known each other for aaaaaages.” Kylie said, spreading her arms wide.  
  
“Are you the tutor they said we were getting?” Hio asked, looking Rhen over critically. “Because you look kind of pathetic.”  
  
“ _Thanks_ ,” Rhen drawled. So these were the kind of students she would be tutoring? Well, she had wanted a challenge.  
  
“Um, excuse me,” someone said. “This is room 112, right?”  
  
“Yes,” Rhen said, turning back to the doorway. She braced herself for the kind of person she would see.  
  
“Oh, great,” the boy said, “I was worried I’d gotten lost again. Um. I’m Gaden, by the way.”  
  
“I’m Rhen,” Rhen said. “Um. Your teacher.”  
  
“Nice to meet you,” he said, politely.  
  
“Likewise,” she said.  
  
Somehow they managed to all sit down, a miracle made more miraculous by Kylie’s ability to occupy lots of space above and beyond her actual mass and volume.  
  
Rhen felt she ought to say something.  
  
“So,” she said. “It’s a… nice day.”  
  
Hio rolled his eyes.  
  
“I’m just deciding if I should wait for any more students to come or not,” she said. “Technically you were all supposed to have been here already, but I’m trying to decide if whether that time actually passed nearly half an hour ago makes it more or less likely that someone else will decide to show up, based on your own performances.”  
  
She sighed. “Fine, if there is anyone else-“ she didn’t really think so, hearing the students’ names said out loud was helping her fill in her memory of the schedule and she was pretty sure this was it- “then they will just have to find us themselves, as it really is their own fault at this point.”  
  
“Find us?” Gaden asked.  
  
“Yes.” Rhen said. “Today is for getting to know you, correct? I can’t do that in this… small hole.”  
  
Kylie snickered, and even Hio looked slightly amused.  
  
“Alright, get up,” Rhen said. “We don’t really have any time to waste, let’s go, hurry up.”  
  
“Where are we going?” Kylie asked.  
  
“Why, where else? The training fields, of course. If I’m going to evaluate where each of you are, ability-wise, it’s best I witness it for myself.”  
  
\---  
  
Hio was not feeling in a particularly good mood that afternoon.  
  
It still stung that he had to be taking these stupid lessons. “Assisted Learning” his foot. A person from  _his_ background didn’t need “assistance”, they needed honors placement and respect that he simply hadn’t been getting.  
  
But what really, really got to him was that, once he already was taking these stupid supplementary lessons, the  _teacher_  he was having them with was such a…  
  
In front of the group, Rhen- what a stupid name, he thought sourly- laughed at some comment she herself had made.  
  
A stupid ditz. That was the phrase he was looking for.  
  
“We’re here!” Rhen said.  
  
Well, obviously. Any person with  _eyes_  could see that they arrived at a… uh… grassy field. It wasn’t like she had to announce it.  
  
By the side of the field was a rack of weapons. Rhen strode over to it and gathered up several swords in her arms.  
  
“Take your pick,” she said. “Personally, I’ll be using…” She lifted a sword in each hand and considered for a moment. “This. It has a nice balance even if it’s a bit on the light side.”  
  
All the swords in the pile looked exactly the same to him. Finally he chose one that had a nice design running down the hilt. Kylie and Gaden chose swords after him, Kylie heading straight for a large double-handed sword and Gaden hesitating before choosing an extremely plain, small sword.  
  
“Interesting choices,” the idiot teacher said, a smile curling at the edges of her mouth.   
  
“Alriiiight,” she said. She held her sword out in front of her, and something… changed.  
  
Where a moment ago she’d been smiling, now no trace of such an expression remained. Her eyes had narrowed, her posture had sharpened. She looked…  
  
Ready to kill. It radiated off every inch of her.  
  
Hio swallowed and found himself taking a step backwards.  
  
“Who wants to go first?” Rhen asked. There was an awkward silence for a moment.  
  
“Um, I’ll try.” Kylie said.  
  
Hio drew in his breath. Kylie had flattened two of her previous teachers- it was one of the reasons she was here now.  
  
He wondered if Rhen was able to tell how dangerous Kylie was. For a second, he actually believed it was possible- he’d been shaken by the sudden change in the woman.  
  
But no. She looked completely unconcerned. She was… smirking, actually. Teachers always did that with Kylie, dismissed her as an inept blabbermouth.   
  
He thought it would be kind of funny when Kylie wiped the floor with her.  
  
\---  
  
“I’ll give you a fifteen-second head start,” Rhen said.  
  
The girl lunged forward- ooh, nice, she was quick on her feet. Rhen neatly side-stepped the movement, and amended the previous thought.  _Extremely_  quick on her feet.   
  
The girl went plunging forward before catching herself, swinging around for a wide stroke, green light flaring on the blade-  
  
“Fifteen seconds over,” Rhen said, and disarmed her with a flick of her sword.   
  
Kylie’s sword went flying. Rhen gritted her teeth- she wasn’t used to using flimsy, light little swords like this one. She’d intended for the sword to drop only a foot or two away.  
  
“Go get it,” she said to the girl. “But before you do, let me explain- It’s great that you’re very fast, and most people would not be able to avoid that initial attack.” She grinned, as she found the wors she was looking for coming easily to her. It really was a completely different experience from Sirona’s stifling classroom.  
  
“Key phrase?  _Most_  people. You run into one who can, and you’ve wasting energy unnecessarily by lunging ahead like that, not to mention that you’re leaving yourself wide open.  
  
Also, you never, ever swing from behind like that- or rather I should say that you’re only allowed to do that once you have enough experience to tell if a gamble like that is worth it- because you can’t keep a proper grip in that position and it’s laughably easy to disarm you.”  
  
Kylie was panting hard, staring numbly at her empty hands (which were probably in pain from the over-enthusiastic disarmament, Rhen thought ruefully). Over on the sidelines Hio looked shocked- he’d probably seen plenty of people defeated by Kylie’s insane speed and hadn’t considered that she could lose.  
  
Good for him, then, Rhen thought, remembering his snide comments from earlier.  
  
She turned back to Kylie.   
  
“So on two counts you’re dead right now- first for leaving yourself open in the beginning, although since I gave you a head start perhaps we won’t count that, and second because your sword is now lying several feet away and the time it takes you to reclaim it is all I need to get in a fatal shot.”  
  
Kylie gulped, for once left with nothing to say.   
  
“You can go get your sword now,” Rhen said, and turned back to the others, twirling her sword. “Alriiiight. Hio, you’re up next. Fifteen seconds, once again.”  
  
Hio wasted his fifteen seconds dancing around her, carefully seeking an opening. She noted approvingly that his technique was actually pretty good, but…  
  
This time she was careful to disarm him more gently, relying less on brunt impact than on the twist of the sword.   
  
“Your technique is fine for now, appropriately cautious,” she said, “but after watching Kylie you should have realized the value of that fifteen-second window of opportunity and used it, not squandered it by fighting in the way you’re accustomed.”  
  
He nodded sullenly and went to pick up his sword.   
  
“Alright, Gaden-“  
  
He came running at her before she had even turned around. She laughed and dodged, but as she did he changed direction suddenly and-  
  
BOOM.  
  
She reeled back from the blast, felt the skin on her face peeling…  
  
What kind of swordmagic  _was_  that? It was incredible, she had never experienced anything like-  
  
“Oooooh,” Gaden moaned. He was lying on the ground clutching his arm and looking awful. His shirt sleeve had been ripped apart, baring an arm that looked swollen and purplish.  
  
“Oh lord,” Rhen said. “I think we should…”  
  
The skin of the arm was beginning to crack, oozing a pussy goo.  
  
“That  _definitely_  needs a healer,” Rhen said, feeling slightly sick. Her face was still stinging in pain, but she ignored it. She crouched down by the boy and gingerly placed her arm around and under his shoulders, lifting and supporting.  
  
“Can you walk?” She asked.  
  
He whimpered. His complexion was nearing pale green. So no, he probably couldn’t.  
  
“Alright. Alright. It’s going to be okay,” she said, quelling the rising fear in her stomach for his sake- how had this  _happened_?  
  
“Kylie.” She said. “Go get the healer. Cut the line, tell her it’s important. Hio, do you know where the nearest supplies closet is?”  
  
He shook his head no, wide-eyed.  
  
“Alright. Um… In Field B- do you know where Field B is? Good. In Field B towards the far end of the field there should be a big wooden chest with some basic supplies in it. Just grab a potion or something and run back here.”  
  
Hio nodded and ran off. Rhen turned her attention back to Gaden.  
  
“You have to remember to breathe,” she said. “The pain is helping speed up your body’s healing process, that’s what pain is supposed to do, what you need to do is stay as calm as possible until help comes.”  
  
“Okay…” He said, limply.  
  
Hio came running up carrying a handful of supplies- clearly grabbed at random- only a few feet ahead of the healer, being dragged along by an insistent Kylie.  
  
“What’s going on?” The healer said, and then saw Gaden.  
  
“Oh,” she said. “Gaden. It happened again?”  
  
Gaden nodded weakly.  
  
“Wait… again?” Rhen said, as the healer began busily sorting through the supplies Hio had brought. “This has happened before?”  
  
The healer nodded, putting her hands together and closing her eyes in concentration. “Hold his head for me, will you? And yes, that’s correct. Several times, actually- each time while he was practicing swordsinging.”  
  
“Wh-Why wasn’t I told this?”  
  
The healer looked surprised. “I have no idea,” she said, “I would have assumed it would be mentioned quite clearly in his file.” She turned her attention away from Rhen and focused entirely on Gaden, holding her hands out towards him so that Rhen could see a web of power pulsating between the healer’s palms.  
  
Then she pressed her hands down firmly and the web of light pulsated, flickered, and… vanished.  
  
“Alright,” the healer said, briskly, “all that’s left is some healing salve and a bandage and you’re good to go!” She applied the dressing quickly and got up to leave.  
  
“That… That’s all?” Rhen said, still in shock.  
  
“There’s not much more we can do, is there?” The healer said. “I used a pretty potent spell, he’ll be fine by tomorrow. And I really have to be back in the office now, there’s a boy in there with a fractured ankle and a new girl cast a spell wrong and is temporarily blind and having a panic attack.”  
  
Rhen stared after her as she left, in new-found awe of what must be involved in the position of school healer.  
  
Back to more pressing matters.  
  
“I’m really sorry,” she whispered down to the boy still lying in her lap. “I had no idea… I didn’t think they would mention something like this only in the files… But why didn’t you  _tell_  me?”  
  
“Wanted to try beating you,” he said, smiling weakly at her. “And it’s not like it… happens every time…”  
  
“Hio, Kylie, can you bring Gaden back to his room, please? I need to go retrieve my files now. Class is dismissed for today.”  
  
They left, supporting Gaden between them. Rhen stayed kneeling on the ground.  
  
Oh god. She had nearly maimed a student. It was entirely her fault- why, why had she left the files in the library, why hadn’t she read them much earlier?   
  
Shakily she got to her feet.  
  
It was a bit late now, but she would go get the files immediately and sit down and read them on the spot. It had been unconscionably irresponsible of her to not do that in the first place.  
  
She took a deep breath and headed for the library. 


	10. Chapter 10

Where were the files? Where were they, where were they?  
  
She had checked the entire length of the table four time, under and over and along the undersides of the benches (how they would have ended up there, she had no idea, but she checked just to be sure).  
  
She rustled frantically through all the nearby bookshelves. Should shee start taking out the books and flipping through them?  
  
Aaah this was ridiculous. It didn’t make sense for her files to have magically ended up inside a book.   
  
But she found herself scanning the tops of the books anyway, looking for a tell-tale envelope peeking out.  
  
There was nothing.  
  
For a moment she simply stood there, helplessly. What was she supposed to do now?  
  
“Um… Can I help you?”  
  
She turned and saw one of the assistant librarians, standing there looking concerned. A wave of relief flooded her.  
  
“Yes. Yes. Oh, thank you.” Why hadn’t she thought of this already? “I had some very important files, but I accidentally left them here… You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”  
  
Her hopes faded as she saw the complete lack of recognition printed on the man’s face.   
  
“I could ask the other librarians,” he offered. “They might have seen them. But I did clean this area just twenty minutes ago and there wasn’t anything here, I can tell you for certain.”  
  
“Then… then where could they have gone?” She asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” he said. “Look, I’ll ask if anyone saw anything.”  
  
“…Okay,” she said. It wasn’t like there was anything else she could do.  
  
She walked with him towards the main desk, but hung back as he approached the lady sitting there and asked her something, in response to which she got up and went into a small backroom, only to return shaking her head.  
  
Rhen stepped forward, already knowing what the answer would be.  
  
“I’m sorry, we don’t have it in the lost and found box,” the female librarian said, “and that’s the only place it would be, unless it got thrown out.”  
  
“I guess that’s it, then.” Rhen said.  
  
“I guess so,” the librarian said. “I’m sorry, but that’s really all I can…” she trailed off.  
  
“What?” Rhen asked.  
  
“No. Nothing. It’s just… when did you say you left the files here?”  
  
“Um… around two and a half hours ago? I guess?”  
  
“Hm,” the woman said.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“It’s not… well, it’s not really likely. But earlier today- it might have been two and a half hours ago, I’m not sure… I actually did see someone leaving with some files… But, they were probably his, right?”  
  
“Right…” Rhen said, slowly.  
  
“It’s only. I thought of it because. Well. I’m pretty sure when he came in he didn’t have any files. Only when he left.”  
  
“Wow. I’m impressed you noticed that kind of detail,” Rhen said.  
  
The librarian reddened and looked away.  
  
Oh. So  _that_  was it.  
  
“Anyway,” the librarian continued, “it’s worth a try, right? Maybe he saw them and decided to return them to you.”  
  
‘Yeah…” Rhen said, doubtfully. “So… who was this person, anyway?”  
  
“Professor Tenobor.”  
  
Rhen stared at her.  
  
Of course. Of course Lars had her papers. Why she hadn’t thought of it beforehand, she had no idea, but as soon as the name dropped off the librarians lips she  _knew_.   
  
\---  
  
Lars had spent the past two hours in a  _much_  improved mood, despite his aching face. He’d kept having to suppress a smile- the muscle movement made his cheek throb painfully.   
  
He was discussing an upcoming project with one of his students at the end of class when he heard the door slam open and, startled, broke off from the conversation to see who it was.  
  
“Lars. Tenobor.” Rhen hissed through gritted teeth as soon as she stepped into his classroom.  
  
…What was her issue  _now_? He rolled his eyes- making sure she could see the gesture- and turned back to the student. “I’m sorry, Darina. It appears we’ll need to finish this up some other day.”  
  
The student groaned and shot Rhen a look as she dashed out of the classroom.   
  
“And what’s  _this_  about?” He said, turning languidly towards her. “If you’ve come to apologize about kicking me in the face, please do  _try_  to avoid inflicting some other injury in the process.” He gestured towards his cheek- which, while not quite as swollen as it had been, (thanks to some judiciously applied ice) was still visibly bruised.  
  
He smirked, and might have regretted it- ow, a girl should  _not_  be able to kick that hard, although Rhen was more a freak than a girl in any case- had her reaction not been so amusing. But watching her turn red and look away slightly as she answered made it worth every ounce of pain.  
  
She sputtered. “The- you deserved that kick, you stupid, overgrown…”  
  
“Yes, yes, yes,” he said, waving his hand. “I know. So, no apology? Then why are you here?”  
  
She took a deep breath. “I know I was a little… bratty… last night but that does  _not_  allow you to run off with my papers just to be  _amusing_.”  
  
“You practiced that line, didn’t you?” He asked, arching an eyebrow. “And anyway I only took your papers because you left them there. I figured I would be nice and return them to you, even if you did injure me for no reason.”  
  
“O-kay,” She said, slowly. “So now you can return them to me, right?”  
  
“Mmmm…” He said.  
  
“ _What?_ ”  
  
“I’m just… thinking about it,” he said, grinning.   
  
She glared at him. “You are such an… an… annoying, pain-in-the-neck…”  
  
“You  _sure_  you want to be calling me names right now?” He said, grin widening.  
  
She snapped her mouth shut.  
  
He waited.  
  
A minute passed. Then another.  
  
“Aaaah! Tell me what you want from me already!” Rhen groaned.  
  
“Be quiet, I’m thinking here.”  
  
“Really want to hit you…” Rhen muttered.  
  
He rose and stretched, yawning. “How about we head down to the lounge, shall we?”  
  
She looked at him suspiciously. “You’re leaving the files here?”  
  
“No, I’m taking them with me,” he said, smiling and picking up his briefcase. “It’s locked, by the way, so don’t try.”  
  
They walked down to the lounge together without speaking. When they arrived, Lars settled comfortable down in the nearest chair.   
  
“Now bring me a drink,” He said. “Mulberry juice, preferably.”  
  
She stood there, clenching and unclenching her fists.  
  
“Well?” He asked.  
  
She turned on her heel and stalked to the lounge café, returning a few minutes later with a tall glass of Mulberry juice. Nothing for herself, though, he noticed. He wondered why.  
  
He waited for a moment, but she didn’t seem to be about to sit.  
  
“…Feel like giving me a massage?” He offered, flexing tired, aching shoulders.  
  
“So this is it,” she burst out. “This is what you want.”  
  
He blinked, confused.  
  
“You still want to order me around,” she hissed.   
  
“I wasn’t- I didn’t-” He hadn’t realized that was what he’d been doing just now, he wanted to say, if she took it that seriously he could stop, but she cut him off before he could continue.  
  
“And you still treat me like dirt half the time. What was the meaning of that apology a year ago, then? I can’t believe I actually took you seriously then. It must have been another one of your messed up jok-“  
  
“Shut up.” He said, and she froze.  
  
The words had come out harder, colder than he’d expected. But she has touched a nerve with her insinuations and he-  
  
“You don’t seem to realize how hard it was for me to say that back then.”  
  
“Of course I do,” she said, dismissively.  
  
He put the drink down. He wasn’t really feeling as thirsty as he’d thought.  
  
“No. I don’t think you actually understand at all.”  
  
She stared at him.  
  
And then sank slowly into the chair opposite him.  
  
“I can’t handle this,” she said, softly. “I’m sorry, Lars. Every time we’re together this ends up-” She buried her face in her hands. “I meant that apology this morning, I really did. But- I just… I see you, and it’s here, in this school, and I just go back to being. Hurt and angry and scared. And I can’t… I can’t deal with-” She breathed in slowly.   
  
“This isn’t working,” she said. “And I have other things to worry about right now. So can I please, please just have the files back now? And we can just call it a day and not-”  
  
She broke off abruptly, stared down at her hands for a moment.  
  
“I got a student badly injured today,” she whispered. “I could have avoided it had I just read his stupid file before I went and- Why do I keep messing up? This was supposed to be my freedom, my… why can’t I get anything right?”   
  
“Did you really not believe my apology back then?” He said, quietly.  
  
She stared at him, broken out of her train of thought.  
  
“I- No, of course I did, that’s why I…” She paused. “At least I thought I did, anyway. That’s why I forgave you. Because you were sincere and. And truthfully I’d been waiting for that apology for such a long time. It was almost a relief to accept it but…”  
  
She brushed her hair back, miserably. “But it’s not really enough, is it?”   
  
“I don’t know.” He said. “You tell me.”  
  
“I still have nightmares…” she whispered. “You’d think, I went up against the most evil demon that ever existed, I would… And I do have nightmares about him, sometimes. But somehow they’re not as bad as- being shoved into a sack, screaming and crying… and waking up every day cold and alone somewhere so, so far away from home when I’m so helpless and- and frightened…”  
  
“I wasn’t the one who did that,” he said, feeling cold.  
  
“I know, I  _know_ , intellectually I realize that. It’s just that- somewhere, in here-” and she pressed her hand against her chest- “it’s all linked together, you understand? And you’re a part of it and, look, it’s not just you, I still blame Talia even though I know she had her reasons. The point is- The point I’m trying to make- Look, I’m trying. And it’s not your fault. And I’m sorry. But it’s not- I just need you to understand that it isn’t going to be like- like- like whatever it is that it isn’t going to be. And that’s all.”  
  
She stood up.  
  
“I need to go.”  
  
“One second,” he said, woodenly. He opened the briefcase and pulled out her papers.  
  
“Thank you,” she said. He could see that she was trying to say something else, too. But he didn’t think he wanted to hear it.  
  
“Rhen…” he said. “I can’t- I can’t help how much of a- I didn’t know back then, I didn’t realize or think about it and I’m-“  
  
“I know,” she said.   
  
She turned and walked away.  
  
For the second time that day he was left there standing, but this time he gathered up his things and walked slowly in the opposite direction. 


	11. Chapter 11

He wandered morosely back to his apartment, in the vast thrown shadows of the day’s fading light, and in his head her words replayed- not the actual things she had said, but the way she had said them, amplified in his head.  
  
At some point he took a wrong turn and someone tried to pickpocket him, but he only barely registered it on the edges of his melancholy. He sort of… limply waved his hand and zapped them.  
  
“Not that it makes a difference, anyway,” he’d said, damply, and the would-be thief had clutched his stinging hand and backed away, muttering something about a “nutty magician”.  
  
A long-forgotten memory surfaced in his head with a small pop, the curious feeling of rediscovering something you hadn’t realized you’d lost.  _Zap_ \- Like a cry of pain and the clang of metal bracelets clattering to the ground.   
  
That day… years ago, centuries ago, he’d given her the name Peta. He cringed at that, suddenly- in his mind it had lost all its former malice, had become simply a sort of… private joke, and now he was left wondering if that had been only in  _his_  mind, if in hers it still stung, if all this time he had…  
  
Certainly this afternoon- and he rubbed futilely at the bridge of his nose, pressing down the fierce humiliation of the memory- certainly this afternoon had been to him simply some harmless… some harmless game to play, to annoy her, and to her it had been much more than that and oh, it was making him shrivel up inside how he could have been oblivious to connotations that were in retrospect so obvious.  
  
He entered his apartment quietly, and stood there remembering how this morning he had thought to himself that that there was no reason for Rhen to dislike him.  
  
There were so, so many reasons, this night.  
  
\---  
  
He dreamed that as they were fighting to reach Ahriman a giant fairy came down and turned Dameon into a yellow frog.  
  
“Come to the dark side, Rhen!” The frog croaked sonorously, hopping up and down.  
  
“Oh Dameon! I’d love to! Because I love you so, so much!” She cried, and ran over to him, wearing a skimpy white taffeta dress that trailed and trailed behind her.  
  
And he woke clawing at the sheets.  
  
This was just… ridiculous. He breathed out slowly, trying to compose himself.  
  
Lars Tenobor, losing his head over a girl. Pathetic.  
  
He crawled out of bed, sorely in need of a drink. In his kitchen the jug of milk in the icebox had gone sour, and he poured it distastefully into the sink. Down at the bottom of the icebox where his fingers went cold and cramped he managed to chip out of the ice a bottle of mulberry juice.   
  
Alcohol he never drank outside of a social setting. It was a social thing, a matter of manners and grace and being picky about the soil quality of the grape juice you drank and that was all it had ever really been to him. As for water… Absolutely not. It almost nauseated him, so plain and dull and common.  
  
Mulberry juice then had become his drink of choice, the dark red sophisticated color combined with that bitter, sweet, rich and earthy taste. So it had some negative associations attached to it tonight, all the better.  
  
He made a small explosion to heat the water faster, dipped the bottle in and waited a few seconds for it to run slushy.   
  
Although the outside of the bottle was warm, bordering on uncomfortably hot, the drink itself was refreshingly cold, sliding gloriously down his throat. He stood with his head tilted back and the liquid sliding slow but smooth into his open mouth and… focused.  
  
When he had drained the bottle he set it down carefully on the counter, and did a quick stretch of his arms, round in a circle each way.  
  
He felt better. He felt magnificent, really. And why shouldn’t he? Magnificent was what he  _was_ , after all.  
  
\---  
  
He was finishing up his breakfast when he heard the light yet peremptory knock at his door.   
  
“Mother!” He said, when he saw standing there. “What a surprise!”  
  
She swept past him into his dining room.  
  
“Have you been eating enough?” She asked, sharply.   
  
“I… yes, mother, I’ve-”  
  
“You never come to visit me. It’s lonely in the house and now that you forced me to get rid of the slave-boy…” Rona Tenobor rarely waited for her son to finish a sentence.  
  
“I didn’t force you, Mother, I just-”  
  
“What a nice kitchen you have,” she said. “Do you have anyone cooking for you?”  
  
“Not really,” he muttered.  
  
“Oh, dear,” she said, and smothered him suddenly in a hug. “I am  _so_  proud of you. I always knew you would be a success. You remember, right? I always told you you’d be an incredible success.”  
  
“Yeah…” He said, awkwardly patting her on the back.  
  
“Because you have the right blood in you, remember that,” she said, “you’re not like that… that trash nowadays, you see them all getting into high positions, really what is the world coming to when people don’t understand their place, it’s really…”  
  
She sniffed.  
  
“You really out to buy yourself some help. Someone of your rank, without even one slave… just a little one, the older ones are always more difficult, I’ve always said that, they lie and steal- But just yesterday I saw them selling a little girl, scrawny thing but she could do cleaning and cooking, I’m sure.”  
  
“I- I’ve already told you that I’m not-“  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’m not sure I…” He gave up. “I’m managing fine on my own, that’s all.”  
  
“What is this?” she said, peering at him. “Is this… does this have anything to do with that nonsense you were telling me a few months back?”  
  
“It…”  
  
“Oho,” she said, laughing. “I see. Someone’s gone and brainwashed you with this equality nonsense, you  _know_ slaves are different from  _us_ , Lars, their brains work differently and it’s only a kindness, to give them the work they were meant to do.”  
  
She saw that he wasn’t answering her and continued defensively. “It’s not as if I  _beat_  them, not really, just a light whack when they need it, it’s the only way they learn. It doesn’t even hurt them, actually, they feel things differently.”  
  
She laughed, airily. “Oh, why are we sitting here discussing this, darling, it’s too serious and heavy for a visit I went to such trouble making. But don’t worry, Lars, it’s just a fad you’re going through, you’ll understand soon enough.  
  
“Yes, Mother,” He said. “Can I get you something to drink?”  
  
“Oh yes,  _please_  darling, a little wine…”  
  
“I bought this just for you,” he said, bringing a bottle out from under his counter. “I’ve been keeping it cool under here, I was planning on bringing it over… when I had the chance…”  
  
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “You really are such a good boy, I always did know it.”  
  
And he smiled and nodded. There was a point in his life when he’d transitioned from a child’s selfish relationship with their parent to something more… delicate. He’d come back from his adventure to a home somehow changed, and he found that his mother was… more fragile than he’d imagined, more small and human and weak and… flawed.  
  
She’d been happy albeit bewildered about the respect he showed her, a new phenomenon- and he had simply been struck at the strange feeling, of newfound love and respect for someone with whom he now profoundly disagreed. He understood… where she was coming from, understood because it had been ingrained into him since birth. But he couldn’t…  
  
People could grow, if they expanded their world. But Rona would never do that, would never pull herself out of the world she created, its only real occupants herself and her perfect, perfect son.  
  
\---  
  
He offered to accompany his mother home, and was not surprised when she refused. He did walk her to the city entrance, however.  
  
As a result he missed all his morning classes- not a big deal, he was ahead of schedule anyway by almost a week, a rarity among teachers.   
  
Rhen’s classroom was… in a different wing of the building from his entirely. That day when he’d intercepted her as she’d left, he’d been only coincidentally in the area. She was probably there right now. Dealing with Sirona.  
  
She’d been upset about something yesterday also, hadn’t she? Some new screw up, she really wasn’t suited to this…   
  
His mouth twitched upwards. She always did things regardless of the odds. She always…  
  
Always…  
  
One day he’d started watching her, noticing her. The kind of milestone that slipped by unnoticed, because once you realized it had happened you couldn’t remember how.  
  
Maybe it was time to stop, he thought.  
  
\---  
  
That morning she had barely been able to drag herself to school. She hadn’t wanted to face him- She had woken up dry-mouthed at the thought of having to see him and when she’d tried to figure out what she was afraid of, she wasn’t able to quite put her finger on it, only that somehow she  _knew_  meeting him today would be catastrophic.  
  
But she didn’t meet him.   
  
Mornings for her had become suddenly quite relaxing- apparently the morning schedule was quite rigid in terms of letting students take special classes, something she hadn’t really noticed in her years here but then she’d never needed to miss class for… tutoring. So she was only going to meeting with the three of them after the lunch break.   
  
Why had she come to school then? Habit mostly, she supposed. And, well, when you were living alone in a place attached to the building itself, it was rather hard to avoid.  
  
She had time, then, to read through her files at leisure. But she already had, the night before- as if she’d have put it off any longer. They offered… not much, actually. Somehow she’d been expecting, especially after the Gaden incident, that they would be full of essential information. But they weren’t. Most of what they said she knew already- Kylie was “easily distracted,” Hio had “an attitude problem,” and Gaden…  
  
She couldn’t help but wince when she came to Gaden’s file and found a three-page long listing consisting solely of each time he’d been injured. Also included were several notes recommending he be politely encouraged to go into another profession, followed by at least three sensing reports that confirmed that yes, he did have a very impressive sword-singing ability.   
  
That there were three was what was of interest, because she’d never heard of anyone having a second sensing.  
  
But she hadn’t yet figured out what exactly it all meant. So she spent her morning sitting in the lounge mulling it over, and with plenty of time left until her first class she wandered down to her classroom.  
  
It was locked. She jiggled the knob just to be sure, but it was unmistakable.  
  
She… well, this time she less wandered than walked briskly to the office, to ask as to where to acquire a key. And when she was directed to a completely opposite end of the building she went from walk to run…  
  
But it made no difference, she was still five minutes late as she bent, panting, to fit the key into the lock.  
  
Not that there was a need to have rushed… none of the kids would be on time anyway, she thought resignedly, and straightened.  
  
She jumped a full foot in the air.  
  
“Lars!” She said, and her heart was racing so fast she thought it would burst. “What are you  _doing_  here?”  
  
For a moment he simply stared at her.  
  
“…Nothing,” he said, “I was just… passing through. And why are you here?”  
  
“I-“ She said, and felt herself flushing. “Well. I. I was going to tell you this… But then, you know… I-I’ve been transferred, I’m not assisting Sirona anymore- isn’t that great?” She finished, weakly.  
  
“Congratulations!” He said, flashing her a smile. “Well, I have to go now… my classroom is right up there,” he said, pointing towards the staircase at the end of the hall.  
  
And just like that, after all her worries about this moment and how she would handle his reaction… Like an anti-climax, as he headed up the stairs.   
  
She felt the relief flood over her, flood over- and then flow on, leaving her with something like hollowness in her throat, an ache she couldn’t identify.  
  
Because he smiled and waved as he went up, and there was such a distance in that small gesture, that just for a moment Rhen felt her heart break. So selfish, like a little child, only wanting a toy once it was taken away. 


	12. Chapter 12

And time passed, because that was what Time did for a living.  
  
Not as much time as it felt like, though. More time than it felt like. It whirled around in loops and twirls, and…  
  
Life became a sort of rhythm and she found she was enjoying it a lot more than she could remember having before. In the mornings she rose late- except for alternating Tuesdays, when she was expected to attend a mandatory and tedious staff meeting which was always unpleasant and uncomfortable, until she got the hang of spending as much time near the coffee counter as possible.  
  
She fell- in a gradual, unexpected way- into the habit of taking lunch with Neya and the other people working in the office. It started mostly with her desire to avoid the teacher’s lounge but became simply a matter of friendship, the kind that was relaxed and low-key and didn’t involve fighting for your life or supporting each other as you staggered bloody and broken through a mud-choked swamp or icy plateau…  
  
And she was happy. Or content, at least.  
  
There was only one problem, but it was a big, frustrating, soul-sucking one. She was continually amazed by the extent to which her three students began to take up her life. It made her marvel at how other teachers- with classes of twenty, thirty- could possibly handle it. But then merely by dint of their large class size they probably didn’t have to deal with the same issue as she did.  
  
It was the goal of a teacher to make sure that  _most_  of the class got the general idea. It was the goal of a tutor to make sure that each of her charges excelled on an individual level, and while it was fully possible that had she had Hio, Gaden, and Kylie only as parts of a larger whole she would have been satisfied with their progress, as it was she felt…  
  
Frustrated.  
  
Kylie, as anyone with her for more than two minutes would have noticed, had attention span problems. Which was, of course, an issue in her other studies, but in terms of swordsmanship Rhen rather thought it could be possible to take that mind, which moved just a bit too fast, and  _use_  it. Especially since it was paired so nicely with a body that naturally moved just a bit too fast as well.  
  
Except, of course, that Kylie found things like practicing basic footwork and technique boring. So instead she made things up as she went along. Which hypothetically could have been great, had she had the experience and know-how to make things up  _effectively_. But she didn’t. With practice- lots of bit, the tedious kinds of drills that burned into you the basics so that you could sword-dance in your sleep, she would have been incredible. But even if she was sweet and accommodating in both one-on-one and group sessions, she never, ever did her homework.  
  
And Hio- well. She’d made the mistake of asking him to call his power their second day, as she hadn’t had the chance to see him display it their first practice. He had responded with a rather caustic remark and walked out, leaving her bewildered. Then she’d re-read his file and realized that, couched in delicately euphemized terms, his teachers had hinted at Hio’s… Rather weak sword-magic. He was from a noble family, and he had just enough technical skill that his family’s name filled in, even if technically the Academy was very specifically for sorcerers and sword _mages_ , not swordsmen with some magic lurking in the background.  
  
But fine, there were ways to utilize weak sword magic combined with stronger swordsmanship, if Hio hadn’t been so adamantly opposed to listening to a word she said…  
  
And then… there was Gaden. And if Kylie and Hio frustrated Rhen, at least she felt  _mostly_  confident that time would help matters. But with Gaden?  
  
For that split-second on that first day she had sensed something incredible in the boy. But it had not resurfaced, not even close. She could understand now exactly why three sensings had been done on the boy- frustratingly, infuriatingly, subsequent to that first lesson Gaden could barely handle a sword.  
  
He had a grip on it, certainly, but his swings were so clumsy, his footwork so pathetic that she could barely stand dealing with him. Despite her issues with Kylie and Hio, she always enjoyed working with them on the field. It was a different kind of challenge to her skills, thinking how to attack them, not to inflict the most damage, but rather to teach them most effectively what they were doing wrong, not to exploit weaknesses but rather to lead them to recognizing them…  
  
But with Gaden this was impossible because he simply wasn’t  _capable_. And she had no idea what to do about it.  
  
\---  
  
“There’s a new vendor selling scarves half-price in the lower market,” Neya said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Most gorgeous colors I’ve ever seen- I bought three.”  
  
“I don’t really need-” Rhen began.  
  
“Oh, come on,” Xindara, from Finances, chimed in. “Do you always only buy what you need?”  
  
“Well, yes, actually,” Rhen said.  
  
The two women stared at her.  
  
“I mean, at least I keep stuff now,” she said, trying to defend herself. “I used to sell off old clothes as I replaced them…” Rhen trailed off, realizing she was only digging herself deeper.  
  
“And it’s not like I need a scarf anyway,” she said, trying a different tactic, “I mean the Empire doesn’t even have a real winter, when would I even  _wear_  a scarf?”  
  
“Not that kind of scarf!” Neva said. “A dress-scarf! They are very, very in right now and… oh dear, you are just hopeless, aren’t you.”  
  
“I’m sorry?” Rhen offered, lamely.  
  
“Apology only accepted if you come shopping with me this afternoon,” Neva said mock-snippily, and then smiled at her warmly.  
  
“Fiiine,” Rhen said.  
  
\---  
  
She hadn’t had friends like this since… since a very, very long time.  
  
She realized it as she was walking out her apartment door, bag in hand, humming to herself.  
  
Actually, she wasn’t sure she had ever had girl-friends at all. In Clearwater she had been the tomboy, preferring the boys’ games, which tended to be rough and exciting, to the girls’, which tended to be… pink. And as for her quest? Somehow, Te’ijal, Elini, and Mad Marge fit the title “girl-friend” like a knee in a glove. And Galahad, and Pirate John, and L- and the boys had been entirely the wrong gender to qualify.  
  
So this was a first.  
  
The air outside was warm and clean like the end of summer, and she wove her way to the market with practiced ease. She and Neva had planned to meet at a small outdoors café but they bumped into each other on the way, and after arriving at the conclusion that neither of them was actually in the mood for a quick drink or snack, they set off for the cloths section, past the fish section (and then, mercifully, the spices section) until they reached a large square lined with shops, hooded to protect the materials inside from sun-fading.  
  
Cottons and silks and taffetas and velvets and canvas and linen and wool and then she ran out of words to describe the materials, and as for colors she didn’t even bother to begin. It made her dizzy. So she closed her eyes just for a second and let Neva lead her towards the specific stall they had in mind, where a robed man was selling rainbow-dyed scarves made from something silky and gauzy and fluttery.  
  
“ _Oh_ ,” she said.  
  
Neva smirked. “Yeah.”  
  
Then she twirled one of the racks around and flicked through it. “Here,” she said, handing Rhen a scarf. “Hold this up to your eyes so I can… hm. No.”  
  
She transferred to the next rack. “That, maybe… no, that’s definitely not… here we go! Green and purple to bring out your gorgeous eyes, and light turquoise to balance…”  
  
Rhen obediently held it up to her face as requested. Neva grinned.  
  
“I take it I have to buy this, then?” Rhen asked.  
  
“You have no choice in the matter,” Neva said.  
  
“Um,” Rhen said, and relented. The fabric was so pretty… besides the main colors that intermingled and blended, there were little thread of pink and gold and myriad other colors that shimmered through it. She was reminded of the wings of the fairies in the caves, when you looked at the close up.  
  
“Rhen!”  
  
She turned- for one vague, irrational moment wondering why Neva was shouting at her from so far away- and saw, moving rapidly towards her, a very familiar face.  
  
“Elini!” And she was somewhat taken aback at how it came out as a near-squeal.  
  
The Veldtian summoner looked her over from head to toe.  
  
“You’ve changed,” she said.  
  
Rhen nodded.  
  
“Who is this woman? Introduce us.” Elini said, gesturing with her head toward Neva.  
  
“Oh. Elini, this is Neva, my co-worker and friend. Neva, this is Elini, my… friend.” She hesitated on the word, aware of how inaccurate it seemed, especially side-by-side with the same term being used to describe Neva.  
  
“Charmed,” Neva said, raising an eyebrow at the hesitation.  
  
“Likewise,” Elini said, inclining her head. She glanced at Rhen.  
  
“Neva?” she said. “I’m sorry, but could you- We”  
  
“You have a lot of catching up to do,” Neva suggested. “Thank you for indulging me, Rhen, I suppose I’ll get going now- have to cook supper anyway.”  
  
“Thank you,” Rhen said, abashed.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Neva said. “Some other time we’ll have a longer shopping trip. Have a good night, Rhen.” She walked away.  
  
When she had melted into the crowds, Elini took a step closer to Rhen.  
  
“I was not expecting to see you here, but now that I have, there is something I would dearly love to have explained. I received an invitation some months ago to a wedding that did not take place. Do you know why?”  
  
The summoner’s eyes had gone cold and hard, with no trace of the friendly sparkle they'd displayed mere moments before. Rhen suddenly felt quite small.  
  
“I.” She said.  
  
Then.  
  
“It was-“  
  
She gestured, uselessly.  
  
“Because there is a word in Veldt for one who breaks their wedding vows, and it is not a pleasant one.” Elini said.  
  
Rhen's eyes started to sting. "I didn't break any wedding vows." She protested. "I never  _made_  any!"   
  
She wanted to say that it wasn't her fault, just that stupid Oracle's, but she couldn't. Because partly it  _was_ her fault.   
  
"Maybe I was selfish and deceitful - but don't tell me I broke my vows, because I didn't! I ran away from Dameon and the wedding before it happened. If I'd had the chance I would've run away before you even got the invitation - before I agreed to the marriage at all.”  
  
Elini seemed taken aback.  
  
“I had not realized you so despised the blonde priest. Admittedly I do not understand your system of courtship, being as it depends so strangely on men, who are of course weak-minded, but I had no inclination his attentions were ill-received.”  
  
“Well, they weren't...” Rhen said, flushing. “At least not at first. I simply…”  
  
She stared at the ground.  
  
“I wanted my freedom,” she whispered. “I don't expect you to understand.”  
  
She dared to look back up.  
  
“I don't ask you to understand.” She whispered. “I ask only that… as a friend…”  
  
She found she could not continue.  
  
Elini stared at her for a few moments.  
  
“Perhaps we should have a longer conversation,” she said, slowly. “I remember we used to have those, occasionally, but it seems I knew you far less than I thought I did, Rhen Darzon.” 


	13. Chapter 13

They sat down on a bench under a palm tree.  
  
“How is Pirate John?” Rhen asked, pretending to be fascinated by her fingernails.  
  
“He runs off. Then I have to hunt him down. Then… this and that.” Elini said, smiling smugly, in a way that made Rhen distinctly uncomfortable.  
  
“My other husbands combined do not cause half the trouble he does.”  
  
“Where is he now?”  
  
Elini frowned. “That… I am not sure. He left me false tracks, but I was not fooled- or so I thought. Now I wonder if perhaps they were not the false trail at all.”  
  
She paused, lips pursed.  
  
“Well,” she said, brightly. “It matters not. He will show up eventually. He is enamored of me, after all.”  
  
“Well, I-“ Rhen began, and faltered. She tried again.  
  
“The Oracle gave me three choices. A quiet life with a childhood love- the love of a child, you see, who might still live in me somewhere but certainly isn’t me, anymore. Or solitude. Or a lie.  
  
And whether or not she realized it, within that lie lay another, that I could pick if I so chose. And I did.  
  
Because.  
  
Truthfully-“ she swallowed- “Truthfully I think I’ve forgiven Dameon, by now. There were reasons, I think, behind what he did.  
  
Long-held feelings of resentment can fester terribly.” And that, she thought, was something she would know. “And… And Ahriman could lie better than any mortal. But.”  
  
But I didn’t want- I didn’t want any of it, I only wanted to be-“  
  
She broke off again。  
  
“I was very, very young when I was stolen away from everything I had known. And I was still so young when the fate of the world was laid on my shoulders. And what I realized when it was all over, when the oracle offered me the choice of my entire future, laid out in front of me-  
What I realized was that I wasn’t ready to decide my entire life yet, because I didn’t even know me.  
I don’t know if I could have ended up with Dameon,” She said. “Maybe it was possible, in some other lifetime. But… we missed each other, somehow.  
I wasn’t ready. No matter how much I thought I loved him- however much I still loved him- Even if love is supposed to be about sacrifice, I still- I still had to choose myself first because. Because how could I possibly share with someone else what I hadn’t even found for myself yet?   
I couldn’t share Rhen Darzon. I certainly couldn’t share Rhen Pendragon, with a title attached to her heart.”  
  
Somewhere in the middle of her speech she had stood up. She was short of breath now, looking down at Elini and sort of amazed at what she had just said. It felt true and right but she’d never really thought it before, never really said it before…  
  
“Your sincerity,” Elini said, carefully, “I think cannot be doubted.”  
  
Rhen held her breath.  
  
“I pity Dameon,” Elini said, softly. “But I must pity you as well. I will accept the justification you’ve offered.”  
  
“Thank you,” Rhen said, and to her horror her eyes began to water.  
  
“Now, shall we discuss some lighter things?” Elini offered. “Before I must leave to seek my husband, that is.”


	14. Chapter 14

She walked briskly into the café and ordered a glass of water, and as she was standing there tapping her fingers impatiently she heard a man coming up behind her-  
  
“What’s happening with my mulberry juice?” He said, impatiently.  
  
Well. Of course she’d run into him now. After all it had already been well-established that the universe loved, loved,  _loved_  Rhen Darzon.  
  
“Buck up,” she thought to herself. “You were planning on confronting him anyway.”  
  
And so she took a deep breath and turned and even stopped for a moment to savor the expression on his face…  
  
“Lars,” she said.  
  
And then there were a lot of options for what would come next. Like “sorry,” but she didn’t feel like saying that, or “I’m a moron,” which was rather like stating the obvious.  
  
“I’ve been having difficulty with the kids I’m supposed to be tutoring,” she said. “Do you feel like sitting and brainstorming with me? Because I’m completely stumped and don’t know what to do next.”  
  
She waited for a moment, and then added- “You can close your mouth now, you know. You look like a fish.”  
  
“I-“ He said.  
  
And there were a lot of options for what would come next.  
  
“Okay,” he said.  
  
\----  
  
Were they going to be talking about what had happened? He wasn’t entirely sure what it had been, but he didn’t want to talk about it.  
  
Why was he agreeing to this?  
  
Because he’d spent the past three weeks aching for the sound of her voice, the kind of ache he hadn’t registered until just now, when she’d turned towards him and a feeling of relief flooded him and left him floored.  
  
“No, I’ve never had anything to do with any of the three,” he said, leaning back and trying to look casual, if only to disguise how desperately he was drinking her in- why, why, why was she so gorgeous? It wasn’t fair. “What did you say that boy’s family name was?”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“The… Hio. That one.”  
  
“Evenstone,” she said.  
  
“Ah.” He said. “I haven’t heard of the boy, himself, but the family is a very famous one.”  
  
“Oh,” she said, “I knew that. They mentioned it in his file.”  
  
“For  _most_  people, it would be obvious just from seeing the name.” He smirked, just because he could. “I guess the people who deal with files must be instructed to be considerate of clueless idiots.”  
  
“Well, I don’t really care about nobles,” she muttered.  
  
He raised his eyebrows at that.  
  
“You are one,” he said, “Remember?”  
  
“I turned down the title. Dameon has it now.”  
  
“You never really explained that to me, you know.”  
  
“There wasn’t much to explain,” she said, shrugging.   
  
“That’s… ridiculous,” he said, after struggling in vain to find an even stronger word to express the ridiculousness of that statement.  
  
“Mmm… Maybe,” she said, at last. “But I’ve… I’ve explained it enough and I think I’m a bit sick of dwelling on it, frankly. The reasons behind it are irrelevant, now, I did it and it’s done.”  
  
 _Yeah, except I tore out the page of the calendar that had your wedding day on it and then suddenly you showed up in front of me and I’d like to know why_” He thought. But he didn’t feel like pressing the issue, so there was a pause in the conversation that felt- awkward.   
  
“In any case,” Rhen said, briskly. “Noble or commoner is not the issue here, it’s a matter of his ability. He can’t do magic properly.”  
  
“Actually, it  _is_  the issue here. It’s rare that this happens, but if he’s an Evenstone it’s certainly possible that he’s a special circumstance- someone allowed into the academy even without magical ability.”  
  
She gave him a look of disgust. “I already knew that.”  
  
“Oh, of course,” he said, smoothly. “I forgot. Your  _files_. A wonder you ever left them in the library for me to find, considering how attached you are.”  
  
“I regret leaving them there. I’m not sure I properly told you what a botched-up job I made of my first day tutoring,” she said.  
  
“You never properly told me that you  _were_  tutoring,” He said, delicately.  
  
She flushed. “I know. Even after you were so worried about me. And I- and I appreciated it,” she said, looking up at him earnestly. “I really did.”  
  
“…” he said. It was the kind of wordlessness that happened when the girl you liked was looking at you in a way that made your chest feel funny, but Rhen took it as something else entirely.  
  
“I’m really, really, really sorry,” she said, and it surprised her how naturally it came out in the context of their conversation, instead of her forcing it, out of the blue. “It’s my fault that I just- I ran away from one little wedding- big wedding- whatever- and turned into a wreck and dragged you along, I’m sorry. It’s not fair of me when you’ve been so nice- well, except for when you’ve been an absolute jerk and a selfish brat but um I’m supposed to be apologizing so. I’m sorry.”  
  
“Absolute jerk?” he said.  
  
She glared. “Yes. Do not try arguing the point.”  
  
“I’m hurt,” he said, clasping a hand dramatically to his chest. It stung.  
  
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Like hell you are.”  
  
“I thought I got better,” He said, and internally winced at the tiny whining edge that had crept into his voice.  
  
“You… did.” She said, slowly. “And… maybe I mostly got used to it. Or we both grew up. Who knows?” She let out a sigh. “Can we get back to the matter at hand, please? Now, about Gaden…”  
  
\----  
  
A day ago Elini had visited him in his apartment, out of the blue.  
  
“Please do not embrace me,” she said, as soon as he opened the door. “I have already made it quite clear that I do not find you attractive or appealing, and I therefore do not want to have to take responsibility for the untoward contact by marrying you.”  
  
“I-“ He said. And gave up.  
  
Talking to Elini was like banging your head against a brick wall, only significantly more painful and frustrating. He strongly suspected she did it just to annoy him- none of the other party members seemed to get the same special… treatment.  
  
He supposed he should have been flattered to be the sole recipient of Elini’s exceedingly bizarre playful side. He rather felt like running away screaming, instead. (How the Pirate put up with her he could not imagine. Being love-addled must have helped.)  
  
“Please do not take offense,” she said. “I just find you to be both ugly and annoying, not to mention weak, shrimpy, and pathetic.”  
  
“Why are women from Veldt so crazy?” He groaned. (It was definitely the love-addled. It was utterly incomprehensible otherwise)  
  
She ignored him, sweeping past him into his apartment.  
  
“I saw Rhen today,” she said. “She seemed somewhat distraught.”  
  
“I. Um. Really?”  
  
“When she described her life here I could not help but notice how often your name came up.” Elini smirked- no,  _leered_ \- at him. “Taking advantage of this opportunity, are you?”  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, stiffly.   
  
“Oh, I see,” Elini said.  
  
Mentally he cursed himself for that one moment of weakness a year ago when he had attempted to prove that, as a matter of fact, he was not at all in any way possibly imaginable interested in marrying Elini. At the time he’d been so irritated that letting slip that he liked Rhen had seemed like a minor price to pay for getting Elini off his back (and he hadn’t really thought it out, anyway. Hadn’t fully acknowledged it until he said it, for the very first time). But as it had completely failed to produce the desired effect  _and_  had given Elini permanent ammunition against him, he had regretted it bitterly ever since.  
  
“You… you didn’t tell her, did you?”  
  
“Of course not,” she said, looking offended. “I keep my vows.” She paused. “Including my marriage vows, but I must regretfully inform you that you will never receive those.”   
  
He chose to ignore that. “Good,” he said. “And anyway it’s not like you think. We haven’t spoken for weeks.”  
  
“Really?” Elini said, looking thoughtful. “That explains it.”  
  
“What?” he said.  
  
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Do try to cheer up, though. I have a strong suspicion your efforts to distract yourself from the pain of your hopeless love for me by pursuing another woman on the side may…”  
  
“What?” he repeated, as she trailed off.  
  
“Oh, never mind.” She said. “I must make haste if I hope to track down my husband.”  
  
Stupid, infuriating woman.  
  
“Please never stop by again,” he muttered, as he accompanied her out the door.  
  
“What was that? I’m afraid I could not hear you.”  
  
“AAAAGH!” He half-screamed, and slammed the door in her face. It failed to make him feel any better.  
  
\----  
  
In the course of their conversation Rhen mentioned meeting Elini.   
  
“It’s weird,” she said. “Because you just sort of accepted that I wasn’t with Dameon anymore, so somehow I just assumed that everyone else would be okay with it.” She laughed, ruefully. “I’m not so good at thinking about consequences.”  
  
“Yes,” he said.  
  
“Why did you react so calmly?” she asked. “And, actually… Now that I think about it. Why weren’t you in Thais for the wedding?”  
  
“I- I thought you were on your honeymoon at first. And then I was just confused. So by the time you finally explained it to me I had the opportunity to be prepared for the idea, I guess.”  
  
He closed his eyes and prayed she wouldn’t notice how blatantly he had ignored her second question.  
  
“Hmm,” she said. “I guess that makes sense.”  
  
And he was so relieved that she had let it drop he forgot to ask her what exactly it was she had said about him to Elini. 


	15. Chapter 15

“So for today we’ll be having a special guest,” Rhen said. It felt ridiculous as it came out, like a kindergarten introduction.  
  
“Hey,” Lars said, smoothly. She kicked him with the side of her foot. He didn’t even wince.  
  
“Professor Lars!” Gaden said, eyes widening.  
  
“What, she can’t even handle the three of us without calling in help?” Hio muttered, loud enough for both Rhen and Lars to hear.  
  
Rhen felt her face burn. Lars had put his hand to his mouth and she could see him fighting down the smirk, with little success.  
  
“Well, well,” he said. “Look what we have here.”  
  
She considered kicking him again. But it would only have been an outlet for her to take out her frustrations… she’d save it for when he richly deserved it. Which wouldn’t take too long, she was sure.  
  
Lars prowled around the classroom, an impressive feat considering it took all of five steps to cover the perimeter of the room. All Rhen had ever managed was to squeeze her way through without tripping.  
  
“I’m trying to understand what the Headmaster was thinking,” he said, at last.  
  
“I’m more suited to one-on-one teaching,” she said, defensive.  
  
Hio snickered.  
  
“Well, yes,” Lars said. “But you’d think that  _the world’s greatest sword-singer_  wouldn’t be wasting her time teaching a few brats.”  
  
“Don’t exaggerate, I’m not-“ she began to protest, before his words had properly registered in her brain.  
  
Wait. What?  
  
“A swordsinger who even wielded the legendary Sword of Shadows, against Ahriman, the most evil-“  
  
“Lars!” She said, putting a temporary hold on her utter shock at hearing  _those_  words coming from  _his_  mouth in order to cut him off. “I already told you I don’t want-“  
  
“What, I’m only saying the truth,” Lars said.  
  
Kylie, who had been watching the exchange with interest, finally burst out- “The sword of shadows? Really? Seriously?”  
  
Lars nodded.  
  
“ _You?_ ” Hio said, looking at Rhen as if she had descended from a very strange planet. Again.  
  
“Omigosh that is so cool!” Kylie squealed. “That’s amazing, isn’t it Hio? I’ve only ever heard of it in legends!” She pulled on Hio’s arm, urging him to agree.  
  
“I.” He said, turning slightly pink. “Well. It. Maybe.”  
  
“I’ve always wanted to wield a legendary sword,” Kylie said, talking more seriously than Rhen had ever previously witnessed. “It’s been my dream since I was six.” She looked at Rhen beseechingly. “Would I be able to-“  
  
Rhen smiled ruefully. “No, I had to return it,” she said, with genuine regret. “It was too dangerous.”  
  
She missed it. It was weird to miss something laced with so much malice, hatred, and pure evil, but there it was. She was someone who was drawn to twisted things, maybe. Or maybe it was simply that she appreciated how the sword had accepted her. It had been clear to her the moment she’d held it in her hands that it was  _not_  that accepting of everyone.  
  
But.  
  
That was all a different story.  
  
“There are other legendary swords, though,” she said. “I’m sure you know that.”  
  
Kylie let out a longing sigh. “Well… yes. Even if the sword of shadows…” Her voice trailed away. Then she perked up again. “But you never mentioned that you were that incredible! You should have told us all about it!”  
  
Rhen snuck a look at Lars. He had crossed his arms and was leaning against the doorpost, surveying the scene with a look of utmost satisfaction.  
  
Annnnd now he’d never stop rubbing this in her face.  
  
Well. She owed him one.  
  
“Alright,” she said, “I will tell you all about it- but not today. We’re going out to the training fields now.”   
  
“Thanks,” she murmured, as she passed Lars on the way out.  
  
Then she kicked him, properly this time, just to watch him hide the grimace of pain. Oh yeah. Steel-toed boots were awesome.  
  
\----  
  
On the field Hio and Gaden were sparring, and Gaden was having a hard time of it.  
  
Rhen sat in the grass watching, enjoying the nice weather and trying to see if she would notice anything she hadn’t before. But she’d already had the two boys spar, and this time looked to be no different than the rest.  
  
“So tell me,” Kylie begged.  
  
“I said I’d say later, didn’t I?” Rhen said. “I’d rather just tell it once to all of you, honestly.”  
  
“Why?” Kylie said. “It was exciting, wasn’t it? And brave and glorious… You should be telling it over and over again!” She paused, quizzical. “I don’t really understand why you were keeping it quiet in the first place.”  
  
Rhen looked at Kylie’s shining, eager eyes and felt herself wilting under their glow. She fumbled for the words to convey what she wanted to express.  
  
“It was… long and hard and cold and dirty, except for when it was long and hard and hot and dirty.” Rhen said, at last. “The vast majority of it was boring, too. We just ran around and around… scraping by…” She trailed off.  
  
“The company wasn’t entirely terrible,” she said at last. “Sometimes the food was edible. It wasn’t  _so_  bad. But these kinds of things… in retrospect of course they always sound exciting, but that’s only because they skip all the unimportant stuff. So you have a hero and they vanquish the evil and in between there’s all the weeks and weeks and months spent doing… you know, the sort of things that need to get done but no one ever cares about afterwards.”  
  
She paused.  
  
“Sort of like sword-singing, really,” she said, pressing the point. “Mostly it’s just practice and practice and drills and drills, hour after hour, but all people see is the ‘talent’ or ‘skill’ and not the work that went into it.”  
  
“But the practice is boring!” Kylie protested. “And it’s not fun, having to swing my sword over and over the same way instead of how I want to!”  
  
“True, that.” Rhen said, and leaned her head back to feel the sun against her face. “But… in the end it manages to be worth it. It’s just that you’ll never get that far, if you keep running away from it. And-“  
  
She turned to look Kylie square in the eye.  
  
“And you do have talent, Kylie. Lots of it. But that isn’t enough. I think deep down you already know that.” She held eye contact with the girl until Kylie turned away herself, ponytail whipping against her back.  
  
She looked small, somehow, hunching in on herself despite her lanky frame.  
  
Rhen waited.  
  
Kylie drew in a deep breath. Then abruptly she picked herself up and walked closer to the edge of the dirt field the boys were sparring on.  
  
“C’mon, Hio!” She yelled, pumping her fist. “You can do it!”   
  
Hio spun on his heel, ducked, and came up to whack the sword out of Gaden’s grasp, the force of the blow sending the other boy sprawling.  
  
“Good job,” Rhen said, impressed, as she walked over and helped Gaden up.  
  
He looked away, unimpressed, and then blushed furiously red as Kylie came running up to hug him.  
  
“That was awesome!” She said.  
  
“Um.” He said.  
  
Rhen, amused at the spectacle, turned away to find Lars regarding her with a curious expression. She walked away from the kids, and he followed her until they were a safe distance away.  
  
“Well, did you see anything useful?” She asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” he said, slowly.  
  
“Agh!” She threw up her hands. “I honestly don’t know what to do, Lars. I saw something in Gaden that was- but it’s gone now, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe I imagined it only I’m positive I didn’t, it’s in his record and everything, and it just doesn’t make  _sense_!”  
  
“Hm.” Lars said. Then- “What were the circumstances surrounding his- whatever it was?”  
  
“We were sparring,” she said, “the first day…”  
  
“Maybe if you…“ He began.  
  
“I have,” she said, “we’ve sparred several times since then but he hasn’t been, it hasn’t been the same, at all.”  
  
“Because of him?”  
  
“Well, yes,” she said, looking at him strangely, “obviously because of him, that’s the whole point isn’t it?”  
  
“I was just wondering if there was anything else that changed as well, to explain the change in Gaden. If there was something we could pinpoint, just to give us a starting point.”  
  
She looked at him, impressed. “Wow, I never realized you could be so… intelligent.”  
  
“Well, obviously,” He said, miffed.  
  
She laughed, amused at how easy it was to ruffle his feathers. “Well, I hope you didn’t sprain something. It can be hard, you know, over-straining muscles you rarely use.”  
  
“The brain is not a muscle,” he said, sticking out his tongue. “Moooron.”  
  
“Baby.”  
  
“Brat.”  
  
“The pot is calling the kettle what now?”  
  
He opened his mouth, on the verge of a retort, but she cut him off.  
  
“Thanks,” She said. “That’s a good idea, but I just can’t…” She frowned, rummagine in her memory. “I just can’t think of anything right now.”  
  
“Sleep on it,” he suggested. Then added- “Imbecile.”   
  
She laughed. “Okay, I will. Hypocrite.”  
  
\----  
  
And it was so easy and natural that he couldn’t stop himself, as they began to walk back into the building, still bickering lightheartedly.  
  
“Rhen,” he said.  
  
“What?” She said, still smiling, unawares.  
  
“Do you want to-“ He swallowed.  
  
“Well.” He said at last. “The empress. Every year. She. Um.”  
  
The students had already preceded them into the building, and somehow the sun was too hot and he was starting to feel sticky and wrong and.  
  
 _This doesn’t mean anything_ , he told himself.  
  
Silently, he breathed in.  
  
“If you want to be High Sword Singer,” He said. “You need to start thinking about it now. And by thinking about, I mean working on gaining influence, establishing connections…”  
  
“I hadn’t even really thought-“ She said, and then stopped. “Never mind. Go on. I’m listening.”  
  
“Every year the empress holds a ball, in honor of her sword singers and sorcerers. It’s a rather prestigious event, purely political of course, a method for the empress to solidify her loyalty but… In any case.”  
 _This means nothing this means nothing this means nothing_  he thought, throat dry.  
  
“Sooo. I was wondering. If you would be interested in coming.”  
  
 _With me,_  he thinks, and doesn’t manage to quite say it. 


	16. Chapter 16

She didn’t own a dress.  
  
It was ridiculous and embarrassing but there it was.  
  
So inevitably there was yet another shopping trip, this one without a tension-filled encounter with a former comrade, and this time Neya dragged Xindara along, so that between the two of them they managed to convince Rhen to buy something long and slinky (with just a little bit of swirl in the skirt) that shimmered subtly purple- “It brings out your incredible  _eyes_ ,” Xindara gushed, and Rhen just smiled and nodded, even if wearing a material this light and floaty left her feeling like she wasn’t wearing anything at all.  
  
“All it needs is a splash of something else… Accessories…” Neya mused, looking her up and down.  
  
“I have that scarf…” Rhen mumbled, our of her depth.  
  
Neya’s eyes lit up. “That would be perfect! The red tones would really warm up the outfit, but it has enough purple to match.”  
  
Rhen was relieved when at last the conversation turned to topics other than clothing, and as Xindara and Neya bantered about paperwork and boyfriends and the varying merits of citrus fruits, she let herself get swept along in their easy socializing.  
  
It was fun. Really, it was light and brainless and enjoyable and she meant it quite sincerely when she said she’d love to do it again.   
  
Nonetheless, she felt exhausted when she finally retreated home. Extended, purposeless interactions- not “here’s what you need to do, here’s how to do it, here are the twelve painful ways you could die in the process” but light pointless chatter for the sake of chattering- was not something she was used to, or particularly good at. It was one of those things she’d lost, somewhere along the long crazy path of her life.   
  
She’d hit the adolescent phase while working as a slave, and then while in the barely preferable position of being almost if not quite the social leper in school. Then she’d saved the world, with barely a transition in between. So. There were things she had lost and things she had gained and… it was okay. Because she was getting her footing back and she would learn.   
  
(Dear God, if she had been queen… Whenever she felt guilty about betraying Dameon, all she needed to do was remind herself what an absolute disaster she would have been for her country had she accepted. She had no experience in politics, none. Her idea of diplomacy vaguely involved plumed feathers. And to have had to balance everyone’s desires and expectations and conflicting needs… Oh, she broke out in cold sweat just at the thought.   
  
Whereas Dameon was charming. And from her own personal experience she knew he was an excellent liar. And he’d had ample political experience. And…  
  
She wondered when the day would come that she’d finally be able to stop justifying herself to herself.)  
  
And Neya- she felt herself smiling fondly- Neya was just.... She was lucky to have her as a friend. Even if she couldn’t quite trace where the friendship had come from, that one day she’d woken up and it was there, still it made her happy and left a warm, contented glow in her stomach.   
  
Some things  _were_  capable of being simple and painless. It was a wonderful thing to realize.  
  
\---  
  
The library had large, comfortable armchairs that had, over the centuries, been combusted, melted, vanished, sublimated, and in one particularly memorable instance fused with a malevolent sorcerer and sucked into a vortex, until finally the librarians became Fed Up and instituted a strict,  _strict_  no-magic policy. Teachers were not an exception. Violators would be subject to a painful death.  
  
Rhen perched delicately on the edge of a chair, leaning over a table covered in papers, as Lars sprawled across one of the most venerable armchairs, flipping a pen between his fingers.  
  
He gestured towards the table behind him. “That would be where you apologized to me and then kicked me in the face,” he said. “You are  _terrible_  at apologies, really.”  
  
“So are you, as I recall,” Rhen said, not looking up from her preparations for the next day. She’d asked him to brainstorm with her for suggestions in teaching her new class- since he was so much more experienced than her, she had said, looking up at him innocently, and even though he knew, for a fact, that she was shamelessly manipulating him (there was no other reason for her to throw in the flattery) he hadn’t been able to resist.  
  
Nor, in fact, did he have any reason to. And he  _was_  flattered- that she had asked. Even though, truthfully, he was a sorcerer. She was a swordsinger. All things considered their fields did not overlap that much.  
  
In any case it had developed into a habit, coming here and relaxing those periods that they had simultaneous frees. Reminiscing, sometimes. Working, mostly.  
  
“Hmmm…” Rhen said, furrowing her brow.  
  
“Thinking hard?” Lars asked.  
  
“Shh,” she said, flicking her hand to dismiss him. “I think I had an epiphany.”  
  
“Isn’t that a good thing?”  
  
“A stupid epiphany.”  
  
She jumped up suddenly, knocking her chair over.  
  
“A really, really stupid epiphany. Lars, can you come with me? Now?”  
  
“Huh?” He said.  
  
“I just realized something painfully obvious. Thankfully I happen to have a solo session with Gaden scheduled next anyway, otherwise having to wait to see if I’m right would drive me crazy. But I need you with me.”  
  
“Um.” He said. Technically, he had a meeting scheduled with one of his students. But he happened to know that said student was absent, so…  
  
“Sure,” he said.  
  
\----  
  
She dashed into the General Studies Form 1 classroom out of breath and harried- which was fine for her purpose, anyway, so she ignored the confused look of the teacher.  
  
“May I borrow Gaden?” she said, already half-dragging him out of the classroom.   
  
“Um, sure.” The teacher said.  
  
They dashed down the hallway, Lars sprinting behind her, Gaden stumbling along, utterly confused.  
  
“What’s going on?” He asked, eyes wide.  
  
“We have a problem,” she said, in her most serious voice. “Don’t ask any questions, just come.”  
  
“O-okay…” He said, hesitantly.  
  
They turned a corner and – there, that room would be perfect. It was a large empty practice room, used when the main rooms overflowed.  
  
She handed Gaden a sword, and then took one of her own.  
  
“I’m sorry, Gaden,” she said, low and menacing.  
  
She watched him blanch and felt a pang of guilt, both for making him this scared and for what she was almost positive would come next. Running through the halls, she had become increasingly convinced that she was right.  
  
“Pay attention, Lars,” she hissed urgently, and then she rushed forward, sword swinging-  
  
CLANG-  
  
Gaden’s sword rushed up to meet hers, the shock reverberating up her arm as- the air around her cracked in a burst of sound as something… exploded. She felt the pain shoot up her arm, but Gaden-  
  
Gaden lay whimpering in a huddle on the ground on the ground. He looked green. She knelt delicately by his side, grateful that she’d brought healing supplies just in case.  
  
And as she turned to look at Lars, who was staring at the boy in shock, she knew that her hypothesis had been right.  
  
\---  
  
“I thought to myself what had changed- and I couldn’t come up with anything- and then, I don’t know. For some reason it just hit me, that he had sort of jumped into it the first day but after that he was-  _holding back_ …”  
  
“I just don’t understand it,” Lars said. “How could-“  
  
“How could the school have missed something as obvious as this?” Rhen said. “I don’t get it either, I mean it’s only the  _only_  other subject this school teach-“  
  
“No,” Lars said, cutting her off. “How could this be  _possible_?”  
  
“What do you mean?” Rhen said, momentarily bewildered.  
  
“Look,” He said, gesturing with his hands. “Sorcery and Sword Singing aren’t just different techniques for harnessing energy. They are fundamental opposites-“  
  
“I don’t follow,” Rhen said.  
  
“When you sing a sword,” he said, “what do you do? You draw from the sword energy into yourself as you strike, right?”  
  
“I didn’t really think about it, but… yeah? Isn’t that what sorcery is also, though?”  
  
He shook his head. “No, no, it’s fundamentally different. A sorceror doesn’t draw power in- he draws power _out_. A swordsinger draws from the qualities of the sword she’s using and then amplifies it through herself, through the sword technique that she uses- that’s why so many spells depends on the sword being used, because that’s really the source of the magic. But a sorcerer draws the energy from himself, and then channels it outwards, so that it’s amplified by the object he’s using, like a staff.”  
  
“It seems like semantics,” she said, hesitantly.   
  
“Maybe the way I’m describing it isn’t making it clear enough,” he said. “It’s literally opposite forces, forcing yourself to close your hand while at the same time opening it, if you’re actually focusing on both properly your hand just freezes because it’s impossible. Except much, much harder! Because at least opening your hand is something easy… you have to focus on magic every time! Except you’d be focusing on two opposite things! I mean, it’s already impossible to focus on two spells at once, and that’s in a situation where they’re almost the same thing- this is just absurd! It doesn’t make any sense!”  
  
“Btu when they tested him, shouldn’t they have-“  
  
“I don’t know how they tested him,” Lars said, “but if I was testing him there’s no way I’d consider this as a possibility. I just saw it myself and I only barely believe it. I mean, it’s the most basic knowledge, everyone knows it. They tell us from elementary school that it’s impossible. It’s a fact, like gravity or the law of inverse magics or…”  
  
“Forgive me for not coming from Veldaran elementary school,” Rhen huffed.  
  
“Don’t you see?” He said, turning towards her. “It’s great that you didn’t. That’s the only reason you were able to figure this out! It’s just...”  
  
“Now what?” Rhen said, as they both looked at Gaden’s prone figure.  
  
\---  
  
“I guess we’re going to have to work on this together,” she said, as they walked down the hallway.  
  
“What?” He said.  
  
“Well, obviously,” she said. “He has sorcery mixed in with his swordsinging, doesn’t he? I’m not qualified to deal with the sorcery, only the swordsinging. And I don’t want anyone else involved, not until we’ve figured this out, if it really is as impossible as you say. And…”  
  
She hesitated. Well, he had already done the same for her today, so she might as well return the compliment.  
  
“And you’re the best sorcerer I know,” she said, softly.  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“Why thank you,” he said, loftily.   
  
She smiled at that- typical Lars- but turned away so he wouldn’t see, which meant, in return, that she didn’t see him either.  
  
Which was good, because she probably would have worried had she noticed how he looked like he’d just been barreled into by a stormbird.


	17. Chapter 17

If they had fallen into a habit of hanging out in the library together, it had now become official. They ate lunch together now, and talked as they ate, brainstorming. Rhen was preparing how to broach the subject with Master Harald, who would obviously need to be told as soon as possible. Not to mention that he out of everyone was most likely to know something useful about dealing with this and whether something similar had ever happened before-  
  
“It hasn’t,” Lars had said flatly, “trust me. I know.”  
  
Which had led into a conversation about Lars’s childhood hobby of reading every single book ever written about sorcery.   
  
“I didn’t think you were the bookish sort,” Rhen had said.  
  
“Oh please,” he scoffed, “it’s sword-singers who are the jocks of the magic world, running around swinging their swords. Sorcerors actually have to, you know, think.”  
  
Which was unfair and entirely besides the point, seeing as that didn’t have anything to do with why Lars had memorized the Encyclopaediea Sorceriae by the time he was nine.   
  
“You’re a freak,” Rhen said.  
  
“No, I just… really wanted to become a sorcerer,” Lars mumbled. For some reason he looked downcast.  
  
“Well, lucky you, then!” Rhen said, clapping him on the back. “When  _I_  was young, I wanted to be a ferryman.”  
  
“That’s a…  _special_  dream,” Lars said, carefully.  
  
Rhen grinned. “I know. But I wanted to see the world- little kids weren’t allowed out of the village, you know, so of course we all desperately wanted to leave- and I didn’t know of that many professions besides farming, and sheep herding, and farming, and selling stuff, and farming… But all of my dad’s bedtime stories had ferrymen in them. I thought they were glamorous…”  
  
She trailed off.  
  
Ferrymen only ever went back and forth, and when she grew up she realized how boring it probably got, how quickly the excitement must fade away.  
  
“There ended up being other ways to get to see the world,” she said.  
  
“Yeah,” he said, quietly, and when she looked at him askance- because he was being a bit weird- he laughed it off and the conversation moved on, to the colors of frogs and eventually back to Gaden.  
  
\---  
  
“Master Harald,” she said.  
  
“Why Rhen,” he said distractedly, looking a bit surprised. “It’s nice to see you here. How have you been managing? I know I had a memo here- somewhere- about something I needed to tell you… Oh right! The Ball! Rhen, the Empress will be holding a ball soon, a very important event. If you really want to aim seriously for being High Swordsinger you-”  
  
“I know.” she said, cutting him off. And then, realizing she had cut him off, she flushed. “It’s about G-Gaden,” she stuttered.  
  
“Oh?” he said, raising an eyebrow. Then, noticing her still standing there, he gestured for her to come in.  
  
“I think I figured out why he tests all weird. It’s just… I think it might sound crazy. And it’s not like it happens consistently so I could prove it to you, I think because most of the time he just holds himself back and inhibits it.”  
  
“If you could simply tell me what this notion of yours is so that I might decide for myself?” Master Harald suggested, upping the ante by raising  _both_  eyebrows.  
  
“When he gets very worked up he uses sorcery while swordsinging and then everything explodes, so the rest of the time he holds himself back from using anything at all which is why he’s so awful even though he has real talent because he’s not actually using it because he’s scared,” she said, in a rush.  
  
Master Harald took a deep breath and sat down.  
  
Rhen took a deep breath as well.  
  
“Um.” she said.  
  
“You feel confident in this theory of yours.” He said it like a statement but it was clearly a question.  
  
She swallowed. “I tested it. Sir.”  
  
“That must have been dangerous, especially for the student.”  
  
She hung her head.  
  
“It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, flexing his fingers.  
  
“I gathered, based on what Lars told me about swordsinging and sorcery and stuff.”  
  
“I’m inclined to dismiss it as preposterous,” he said, “but… you seem sane. And I have reasons for trusting your opinion on such things, which is partially why I gave you this job in the first place. And… And in a very strange illogical way it makes perfect sense.”  
  
“That’s what I thought,” she said.  
  
“I’ll have him taken in for evaluations, again. Only this time I think I shall perform the myself.” He mused, thoughtfully, half to himself. He looked up and saw Rhen still there, waiting.  
  
“Well?” He demanded. “Don’t you have classes to teach?”  
  
“Er,” she said, and turned to leave.  
  
“Wait,” he said.  
  
She turned.  
  
He smiled at her. “I knew I gave you this position for a reason,” he said. “Good job.”  
  
\----  
  
“And then he smiled! Like, really, actually, seriously smiled! I didn’t even know he could  _do_  that! Did you?!?”  
  
Lars paused, wrinkling his brow as he tried to imagine it. It was utterly impossible.  
  
“Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?” He said, again.  
  
“I pinched myself just to make sure.”  
  
“Huh.” he said. There was little else that could possibly be said.  
  
“Anyway, Gaden is going in for testing this afternoon- Master Harald wanted it done as soon as possible- and then if it turns out I was right we’ll need to figure out how to teach him sorcery…”  
  
“Mmm.” Lars said. “How long do we have to wait to find out?”  
  
“…This evening, I guess. Something like that. Do you want to eat dinner with me to discuss it with me once we get the results?”  
  
\-----  
  
Rhen’s appetite had not changed.  
  
“And then the orange duck, please.”  
  
“Er. A whole one?” The waiter said, desperately but without much hope.  
  
“Well, yes,” she said. “That is what it says on the menu.”  
  
The waiter looked beseechingly at Lars, his expression clearly conveying that he was hoping Lars would point out the small print next to the particular entry that said “Serves 4-6 people”.  
  
But Lars had been down this road before and knew better.  
  
“And the Raspberry Sorbet Swizzle. And some Buttered Toast…” Rhen continued.  
  
Because this time Lars was  _not_  in a state of confusion, trying to comfort Rhen, and because this time there relationship was already somewhere different even if he still wasn’t sure where that was, he didn’t bother to swallow his acerbic comment once the waiter left.  
  
“You’re like a bottomless pit,” he said. “I lose my appetite watching you wolf things down.”  
  
And because this time Rhen was not feeling insecure and miserable, she just grinned.  
  
“Why, thank you, Monsieur Lars,” she said.   
  
“Are you sure you can afford to eat like this?” He said.  
  
“Rarely,” she said. “But I thought you were paying.” She grinned cheekily at him.  
  
“Um.” He said. “You seem to be under a mistaken impression. I come from a very small, rural noble family, I do not  _actually_  have money sprouting out of me whenever I sneeze.”  
  
“Um,” she said, mimicking him. “Yes you do. Especially because you still have your share of the small fortune we made adventuring around the world, whereas I left that all in Thais.”  
  
“You ran away from Dameon?” he said. Because by this point he knew, but he just wanted to hear it be sure.  
  
“Yes,” she said.  
  
“You never actually got around to telling me that,” he said. “For the first week I thought you were here on your honeymoon and I didn’t understand where your husband was. Then eventually I sort of pieced it together.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But when we met you were laughing at me and I got annoyed and then I…” She sighed. “It’s so complicated, isn’t it?”  
  
The waiter arrived, white-faced beneath the weight of the enormous stack of plates he was carefully balancing. Lars was going to have to leave a huge tip, wasn’t he. Oh well.  
  
“I thought you really loved him,” he said, carefully.  
  
“I thought so too,” she said. “Then he turned out to be working for Ahriman! Did  _everyone_  but me forget that? I felt so betrayed, and I just- I don’t understand why everyone assumed I would be okay with that, as if nothing had happened! Or why everyone assumed I would make a good queen! Or why everyone assumed that-“ She broke off.   
  
“But I did love him,” she said softly. “I thought I would just leave and it would be over but I keep feeling guilty about it. Because he really, really loved me. I think. I’m not sure. I’m not sure the one he loved was  _me_. I’m not sure that I  _was_  me, and that makes no sense and we should probably talk about something else now.”  
  
“Okay,” he said, as Rhen furiously stabbed a piece of meat with her fork. “Let’s talk about Gaden.”  
  
“That  _was_  what we came here for, wasn’t it?” she said, with obvious relief.  
  
“There’s something we should start immediately,” Lars said. “It might help a great deal and certainly won’t do any harm, and that’s focus exercises. Any sorcery student does them, but for him they’ll maybe serve the dual function of also helping him get it under his control. In fact, he might benefit from a meditation class, as well.”  
  
“I’ve been re-reading basic sword-singing books,” she said. “Looking for the general underlying techniques. I want to help him develop a style that will give him leeway to use sorcery. He’s not a sorcerer- the results were clear, he’s definitely a swordsinger- but he has this sorcery in him nonetheless and unless it has an outlet, well, we already know what happens then.”  
  
“Actually, I was thinking…”  
  
\---  
  
The moon was already high in the sky by the time they left. The lamps along the streets had been lit, and glowed soft yellow.  
  
“About the ball.” He said, abruptly. “Do you need me to escort you there?”  
  
Want, he had meant to say.  
  
“Oh no, it’s fine, don’t bother. I’ll go with Neya, so we can help each other get dressed. Neya works in the office, you probably know her-“  
  
“Oh yes, I remember her.” he said. “Well then. Glad that’s taken care of. You’re all set for the ball then, right? Prepared for it and everything? Because it’s important, I mean, to make a positive impression.” He stopped, panicked by a sudden thought. “You do know how to dance, don’t you?”  
  
At that she laughed at him, right in his face, laughed so hard her knees buckled.   
  
“Lars, you’re talking to a  _swordsinger_ , what kind of question  _is_  that?”  
  
“Well, there’s a difference between dances that you use to kill someone and dances you do for socializing. I mean, I hope there is.”  
  
“Maybe,” she said, “but they’re similar enough. I learn fast.”  
  
“But you’re sure?”  
  
“Neya asked me to practice with her, so yes, I’m sure. Absolutely positive.” She was still laughing at him, as she took his hand and put it on her waist and then put her hand on his shoulder. Suddenly it was silent, except for his heart beating like cannonshots, and she whirled around and his arms and legs went instinctively with her, following her steps so that they moved together step-turn-step-  
  
“There, see?” She said. “I  _know_  this stuff, it’s practically my specialty. Well, more like a side-point to my specialty but close enough. I’m an expert…” She trailed off.  
  
For a moment they stood there awkwardly in the soft night air. Somewhere, it smelled like perfume and desert flowers. And now was when he should probably say something but he couldn’t, couldn’t get the air in to form words.   
  
Instead he took a step back. She did the same, so that now there was a gap between them, and still the awkward silence hung there and his throat was dry as ash.  
  
“Okay, so you can dance.” He said, with a light laugh. He barely choked on it at all and he rather hoped that she didn’t notice.  
  
“We should be going now,” she said, fidgeting.  
  
“Right,” he said. 


	18. Chapter 18

Because Rhen hadn’t needed to be picked up, Lars ended up at the ball early, and without her.  
  
Instead he was standing near the drinks making conversation with Amalia.   
  
“It’s hard to make them focus, you know?” she said.  
  
“I wouldn’t be able to do it,” he said, “I’m hopeless with younger students.”  
  
“Really?” she said. “Somehow I imagined…”  
  
He laughed. And then excused himself.  
  
Where  _was_  she? He might as well position himself closer to the entrance, so he’d be sure to see her when she came in-  
  
Oh, there she was.  
  
\----  
  
“Why, hello.” Rhen said, as she saw Lars weaving his way through the crowd towards her.  
  
Neya raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Neya,” Rhen said, “This is Lars… he was the one I told you about, who suggested I come to the ball?”  
  
“Is he the one you’ve abandoned us for during your lunch breaks?” Neya asked. “I hadn’t realized you were so close.”  
  
“Well, we’ve known each other for a… a very long time.” Rhen said.  
  
“I see.” Neya said. She looked back and forth between the two of them, eyes narrowed.  
  
“Lars, this is Neya, I told you about her- she helped me choose this dress and also helped do my hair, isn’t it pretty?”  
  
It was. It was swept up and pinned, with certain tendrils strategically let loose, and it framed Rhen’s face perfectly.  
  
“You have excellent taste,” Lars said, smiling at Neya.  
  
“Why, thank you,” she said. “You’re Lars, are you? I’ve never really had a chance to talk to you.”  
  
He looked abashed. “Sorry, I don’t really make small talk while handing in papers and such.”  
  
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll forgive you for that.”  
  
“Thanks,” he said.   
  
She winked at him and he struggled to fight down a look of bewilderment.  
  
“Er,” he said, turning away. “Rhen. I was wondering if I could ask for a dance? A proper one.”  
  
“Of course!” She said, carelessly.  
  
“Rhen!” It was the Waltz professor, a teacher Rhen had been close with back when they were students. “Fancy seeing you here! My, you’ve grown!”  
  
“And you’ve retired,” Rhen said. “Otherwise you’d have seen me at the Academy.”  
  
“Really?! You’ve gone back there? I should have guessed. But anyway, what can you do? You get old. Or tired. But still far enough from the grave to ask for this dance, charming lady, if you please?”  
  
She laughed.   
  
“It would be my pleasure,” she said. “Lars here didn’t specify which dance he wanted, anyway.”  
  
She walked off, matching her pace to that of the older man.  
  
\---  
  
He intercepted her from the teacher as soon as the first dance was over.  
  
“That was mean of you,” he said.  
  
“What?” She said, half-pouting. “I wanted a chance to catch up with him, I haven’t seen him in ages. You I see every day. And you didn’t specify.”   
  
“Stop trying to justify yourself.”  
  
“It was mean of me,” she said contritely. “Sorry.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Oooh ooh I love this one! It’s one of my favorites!” She grabbed his hand and then they were dancing.  
  
Because he was prepared, this time- because he had steeled himself over and over- their first dance together was uneventful. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest but this was a fast dance, not a close one, and so mostly the heartbeat was from the exertion of keeping up with all the steps.  
  
If Rhen was an excellent dancer, he was merely a practiced one, after all.  
  
When the dance ended he got her to agree to another one, but then he had to go get himself a drink and he lost sight of her for the next several dances, during which time he was intercepted by two of his fellow teachers as well as some family friends and one great-aunt and found that courtesy demanded he dance at least a little with all of them, so that he was thoroughly hot and tired by the time the musicians took a small break to help themselves to refreshments.  
  
He looked around for Rhen and saw her being dragged out the door. Weaving his way through the crowds, he headed towards her.  
  
\---  
  
As soon as the musicians stopped playing Neya grabbed her hand and dragged her outside.  
  
“It’s boiling in there,” she said, fanning herself. “And you’ve been dancing like mad, you need to take a break.”  
  
“I won’t,” she protested. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m used to this, I’ll be fine”  
  
“Still, you need to take a break,” Neya said.  
  
“Fine, fine. It’s nice out here, though,” Rhen said. “Aaah, this breeze feels good.”  
  
She leaned back against the wall and enjoyed the feel of the cold penetrating into her bones.  
  
Neya was watching her, closely.  
  
“What?” Rhen said, at last.  
  
“You tell me what. What’s going on with you and that sorcerer?”  
  
“Huh? Master Aberforth is very helpful, and is an excellent manager of the Resource Room-”  
  
“Oh, not him!” Neya said, exasperated. “The green-haired one.”  
  
“Lars.” Rhen said.  
  
“Yes, him!”  
  
“What do you mean, what’s going on?”  
  
“You didn’t tell me about him.”  
  
“Yes I did. I distinctly remember telling you that a friend had suggested I come here, when we went shopping for a dress together.”  
  
“Yes, but you didn’t. You know.  _Tell_  me. About him. You didn’t even mention it at all.”  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”  
  
“Your  _friend_.”  
  
“Yes, my friend!” Rhen shouted, frustrated.  
  
Neya stared at her.  
  
“He’s seriously just your friend,” she said at last, flatly.  
  
“Well,  _obviously_ -“ She paused, as she suddenly realized what Neya had been suggesting. “What!? No! We’re nothing like that, at all! Not even close! Never! Ew!”  
  
Neya groaned. “Oh, the poor guy.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Rhen said, a little offended.  
  
“You seriously never thought of the possibility-“ Neya said, ignoring the question.  
  
“Lars isn’t a  _guy_ ,” Rhen said, “He’s just, you know. A friend. Who I kind of hated for a really long time but eventually I realized that he wasn’t the most obnoxious creature on the planet.”  
  
“Hate isn’t that far from love?” Neya suggested.  
  
“No, Neya, seriously! It’s just weird to even think about.”  
  
“You’re like brother and sister.”  
  
“Um,  _no_.” Rhen pulled a face.  
  
“Then what? You’ve been hanging out with him an awful lot lately, even if I only just realized tonight that it was  _him_  you were hanging out with, and you seem really close. Are you seriously going to say it’s just friends?”  
  
“Neya,” Rhen said, slowly. “I am positive I could never see Lars a- a man. Ever. I knew him when he was a snotty, horrid little brat. And what’s more, it wouldn’t matter if I ever did, because there’s no way  _he_  would ever think of me as anything more than a- a-“  
  
“Friend,” Neya prompted.  
  
“That,” Rhen agreed. “He used to tell me I was ugly and useless-“  
  
“How long ago was  _that_?” Neya prodded.  
  
“A while,” Rhen admitted. “But! Even if we’re past that stage now I’m certain he doesn’t consider me girlfriend material.”  
  
“That’s weird,” Neya said, “because I could have sworn, based on the way that he was looking at you, that he most definitely does.”  
  
“I have no idea what you mean,” Rhen said.  
  
“Are you  _blind_?”  
  
Rhen opened her mouth to protest but Neya cut her off.  
  
“Think about it, at least. It doesn’t make sense to dismiss him as just a friend, just because years ago he was bratty.”  
  
“Alright!” She said. “Fine, I’m thinking about it, and I-“  
  
She stopped. Rising in her memory, unbidden, came the sudden image of their dance as they walked home from the restaurant a week ago, the expression on his face as he stepped away from her.  
  
“Whaaat?” Neya said, looking triumphant.  
  
“Nothing,” she snapped, and utterly distracted she fled back into the building.  
  
\----  
  
Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, he had been unable to take it anymore and he’d escaped.  
  
He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. He’d just been about to step out when he’d heard his name. And then he’d stood transfixed, unable to move beyond the pillar and present himself.  
  
He was fine. He was absolutely fine, he thought, as his nails dug into the palms of his hands. He could feel himself go cold and hard and numb, from how completely okay he was.  
  
\----  
  
Everything was the same as always, she thought, as she downed her second glass of some light fruity cocktail they were serving. It had a little cube of jelly in it, which she slurped up defiantly.  
  
Oh, it was so absurd she wasn’t even going to think about it. But it didn’t even matter if she did, because it wouldn’t change anything. So Lars was a guy. Okay. She already knew that. It didn’t matter if Neya…  
  
Only she hadn’t considered it, ever, and now the thought was planted in her head. That she could possibly have a- a- a- relationship with him. It wasn’t like a real possibility, just that the fact that she was thinking it made her horribly uncomfortable. If Lars could read her mind right now he’d probably laugh at her. Or stop talking to her, that was much more likely.  
  
Absolutely, certainly, everything was completely normal. It had to be.  
  
She could even prove it.  
  
“I promised you a dance,” she said, smiling at him, when she caught up with him on the dance floor.  
  
“Of course,” he said, smiling back at her. He took her hand.  
  
There was no special closeness in the touch, no slight, helpless squeeze of the fingers. If anything he seemed remote. She could feel the distance radiating off of him.  
  
It was a slow dance. Painfully slow. She was pressed up close against his chest and his arm held her steady and oh god she was going insane.  
  
Because for the very first time it registered that his hand was bigger than hers, enveloped hers completely, that his grip was strong and firm aaand there was something wrong with her.  
  
She could even smell him. This late into the evening he smelled mostly like sweat and, bizarrely, like cinnamon. It wasn’t, objectively speaking, the most attractive smell. Although she couldn’t really complain- with her hair sweat-slicked against her neck, it wasn’t as if she was much better.  
  
All the cool from being outside seemed to have fled from her. No. She was a million times hotter than she remembered being before she had left. She could feel the blood rushing to her face, in fact, as her skin flamed from the heat of him.  
  
No.  
  
Nonononononono.  
  
She was definitely going out of her mind. That or worse.  
  
But that was the thing. She  _had_  never thought of him as a man. Ever. It had been such a leap just to think of him as a friend. It had never even occurred to her, so she’d been safe and innocent and curse Neya for bringing it up because now she couldn’t escape it, the  _possibility_  of it.  
  
It wasn’t even like it mattered, she thought, it wasn’t even like it made a difference, just that she was suddenly so very much more aware of…  _him_. Simply as a presence.   
  
She wondered if she liked him and she realized that regardless of whether she did or didn’t, something had changed, because she had never wondered that before.  
  
\---  
  
The dance ended. She moved away quickly and half-expected that he would hold her back, just for a second, just to say something or joke or anything. He hadn’t spoken a word the entire dance. But he moved back without any lingering at all, leaving a wide space between them.  
  
“That’s all,” he said. “Two dances is enough for a night, you can’t possibly complain.” He wiped his hands as if to remove her from them, and walked away without a backwards glance.  
  
“There,” she thought, furiously, “he doesn’t think of me that way at  _all_.”  
  
And because it wasn’t like that between them at all, and because she’d been right and Neya had been wrong, she thought it rather unfair that her eyes were starting to sting. 


	19. Chapter 19

Leading away from the ballroom were a number of small rooms, filled with mirrors and sinks and ladies fixing their hair. She retreated to the furthest one down the hall and slumped against the stone wall, trying to be calm, her head spinning.  
  
She was carrying a glass, she realized. She drained it in one big gulp.  
  
Then she fixed her hair and checked the makeup Neya had helped her put on, before striding quickly back down the hallway and back into the ballroom.   
  
But when she arrived the dancing was over. Instead everyone seemed to be congregating around a platform near the front of the room. She hurried to join them, as the room swayed around her. Funny, she felt a bit dizzy-  
  
“Oh, there you are!” Neya said, grabbing her hand and dragging her into the crowd-  
  
“Is now a good time to mention I’m a bit claustrophobic?” Rhen gasped, as the mass of bodies pressed around her.  
  
“Absolutely not,” Neya snapped. “Oh drat it, it will be absolutely impossible to get to the front like this.”  
  
Abruptly, the low roar of the crowd subsided, and Rhen, standing on her tiptoes and grateful she was tall, peered out from among the mass of heads and saw the Empress walk out to the platform- dais, really- escorted by guards, in full ceremonial garb.  
  
Neya was jumping up and down beside her, futilely trying to see  
  
“Is it her? What does she look like? What is she saying?”  
  
“S’be quiet,” Rhen slurred.  
  
The Empress began to speak, her voice low and melodious and somehow it carried over the entire crowd, so everyone could hear it clearly.   
  
She thanked them all for coming to the ball. She thanked them all for their loyalty and support. She spoke about the sake of the country and pride of Veldarah. And then…  
  
“This is a ball held in honor of the swordsingers and sorcerer of our country, who nobly dedicate themselves to our service and devote their lives to the safety and prosperity of the realm. Their talents are truly the backbone of support this country relies on, and we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to them for that.”  
  
Pretty words, considering that all sorcerer and swordsingers were property of the Empress. But somehow when the empress said it, Rhen could feel her spine stiffen with pride. Perhaps because that same pride emanated from the empress herself, suffused her words with warmth as she spoke.  
  
“This ball is an annual event that we hold in celebration of these men and women and their inestimable contribution to our country’s continued prosperity. But I would like to take this opportunity to announce, that in honor of fifty years of loyal service by our noble High Sorceror and High Swordsinger, we will be holding in six months, on the anniversary of their appointments to office, a grand festival dedicated to sorcery and swordsinging. It will be an enormous fair held here, in the capital. It will be declared an open-trade day, and a day in which bounty will flow freely. Refreshments will be available, the royal gardens will be opened for guided tours, the East and West squares will be opened to accommodate increased traffic…”  
  
The crowd of people began to whisper among themselves, their voices adding together until they overpowered the Empress’s, excited whisper and murmurs.  
  
“And I haven’t even announced the central event of the day,” The Empress said, her voice rising a notch, demanding silence.  
  
Silence fell.  
  
She smiled. “You may wonder, after all, why I am choosing to first announce this event here, and not to the public at large. Rest assured, they will know by midnight- News travels- although I plan to officially announce it early tomorrow morning. But I am making it known tonight, to this specific gathering, because I wish to invite you all to the first Grand Competition of Swordsinging and Sorcery, to be held the day of this fair.”  
  
At this a veritable roar exploded, as everyone began talking at once.   
  
The Empress waited for quiet.   
  
Slowly, slowly, the noise subsided.  
  
“Ahem.” She said. “I say ‘first’, but it is, of course, an event that has precedent. My beloved late father, may he live forever in the Eternal Garden, held a similar event to celebrate his coronation. I will be offering some of the same rewards as he did. I will also be offering some… additional ones. But rest assured- victory in the competition will be well worth your while.  
  
I dismiss you all to begin your preparations. Further details will be forthcoming. Have a good night- and good luck.”  
  
She swept out of the room, her guards trailing.  
  
Everyone began to talk at once.  
  
\----  
  
She was following Neya out of the crowd, when someone barreled into her, and she half-stumbled before catching herself and then a stream of women flowed by and she lost Neya entirely.  
  
She was in a still-considerable crowd, seemingly composed entirely of people she didn’t know. There wasn’t enough air to breathe, either, and she fought the panic rising up inside of her. The claustrophobia was silly. There was no proper reason for her to feel this dizzy and nauseous.  
  
She tripped- in her fall, something had happened to the little strap of her shoe- and someone reached out to support her.  
  
“Lars,” she said. Oh, she didn’t care anymore about what Neya had said. It was such an incredible relief just to see him. Partly because of her panic, partly because in this strange haze of her mind it was nice to see him looking at her, not ignoring her like he had during their dance. She could feel the happiness of it washing over her.   
  
Only… he was looking at her a bit  _strangely_. His face looked like stone, it was so still, but his eyes seemed kind of wide as if he was in shock and-  
  
“What?” she said, self-consciously. Her hand went to her hair and face- had she grown fangs?  
  
Wordlessly he stepped away from her, with a gentle push so she would regain her own feet, but instead she lost her balance and staggered again.  
  
She reached out with a cry.  
  
“Rhen!” He said, catching her. There was something half-frantic about the way he said it, the way his fingers suddenly went to check her pulse at her wrist. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I think so, yes,” she said, smiling goofily at him.  
  
He looked disgusted.  
  
“Are you  _tipsy_?” You idiot, you can’t hold your alcohol at all…”  
  
“Alcohol?” she said, confused. Her eyes widened. “Wait, the drinks were…”  
  
He groaned. Or laughed. Something in between.  
  
“Well,” she said. “At least you’re talking to me again.”  
  
He stiffened. “What do you mean?”  
  
“You weren’t. Before. And then I got confused- did I mention I had the stupidest conversation with Neya earlier? I think I’m really confused. My head is a mess. But why are you angry at me?”  
  
“I’m… I’m not angry at you.” He said, with just enough of a hesitation so she was sure she’d been right.  
  
“You are.” She said, with absolute certainty.  
  
He sighed. “I’m not. I’m fine. It’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
She hesitated.  
  
“Lars, what did the Empress mean, earlier? I couldn’t really follow it, my head feels kind of… muzzy… but everyone was talking about it…”  
  
“You mean about the contest?”  
  
“Yes, that.”  
  
“Well, she wasn’t openly acknowledging it, but everyone knows what it’s really about.”  
  
“Really about?” Rhen said, wishing her brain would work faster.  
  
“Well, yes. Everyone’s been wondering for years now how long it would be before the High Sorceror and Swordsinger retired. They’ve been in their positions… since my mother was growing up, I think. And now I guess it’s really going to happen, soon. There’s no other reason to be having this.”  
  
“The winners will get to be High Swordsinger and Sorcerer?” she gasped. The burst of adrenaline through her veins made her head clearer.  
  
“Well, no, not exactly… There are other factors to consider, also, so I doubt it would simply go the winner, but certainly in the course of the competition you can be sure the Empress will arrange it so she gets a good sense of anyone she’s considering. Because obviously any serious contender for the title will be participating in this.”  
  
“Then Lars,” Rhen said, turning to face him. “What are you so calm about? We have to start preparing!”  
  
“Preparing?” He said, blankly.  
  
“Preparing for the contest, obviously.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Lars,” she said, patiently, “The reason we came to this ball is because it’s an important political event for swordsingers and sorcerers. And we want to be High Swordsinger and High Sorceror, remember? And you just said that any serious contender would be involved in this event. Which means that we obviously have to participate! And do a really good job, too, if we want to stand a chance-“  
  
“Wait, wait, wait, since when do we stand a  _chance_?”  
  
“What do you mean, since when do we stand a chance? The reason we came here is because of wanting to be High Sorceror and Swordsinger, how is this any different?”  
  
“There’s an enormous difference! We came here to build connections, slowly, and also to start just having ourselves out there, in semi-public, so that we start to be established- The first of many steps in creating a network of support, but obviously it’s a process that can take years! This competition is in  _six months_! We’re complete newcomers to the scene, you can’t honestly think we’re going to take on all the established, highly influential sorcerers and swordsingers who will be vying desperately for the Empress’s attention?”  
  
“…We saved the world from the most evil being to ever exist. I’m not sure why this would be so hard.” Rhen said.  
  
“No one knows about that! As far of the rest of the world would be concerned, we would just be audacious upstarts!”  
  
“That’s not true,” Rhen protested, and then paused, thoughtful.   
  
“That’s not true,” she said slowly. “The Empress knows.”


	20. Chapter 20

It was absurd, her idea. He argued with her about it all the way out the building, but then Neya intercepted them and led Rhen back with her to the school-supplied apartments.   
  
Seeing Neya reminded him. But he had gotten sufficiently worked up about this stupid notion of Rhen’s that the cold hard knot in his stomach had managed to dissolve, leaving him defenseless.  
  
His apartment, as usual, was dark when he arrived. Absently he reached for the spark-flint and lit the hallway lamp. It shone, disconsolately, on the carpeted hallway leading into the apartment, with its single mahogany bookcase ensconced in the corner, books neatly laid out in rows on its gleaming shelves.  
  
He turned and slammed the door shut. It caught on the rug and slid to a slow, gentle stop, closing with a click. Furious, he re-opened it, and this time slammed it with both palms, throwing himself against it, to no avail. The door slid smugly, softly, to a dignified stop.  
  
Something black and bitter and twisting rose inside him.  
  
He kicked the door, viciously, and then limped towards the book case and threw every single book on the floor, so that they lay splayed all over the hallway.   
  
He took a deep breath and stood there, hands clenched into fists.  
  
And then, with a sigh, he knelt to pick up the books.   
  
\----  
  
KNOCK-KNOCK.  
  
Lars groaned and rolled over in bed, burying his head into his pillows.  
  
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCKITTY-KNOCK.  
  
Dammit all to hell. Who  _was_  it at this ungodly hour?   
  
He rolled blearily out of bed. He’d slept terribly that night, struggling fitfully amidst uneasy dreams.  
  
“What.” He said, shortly, when he opened the door.  
  
The doorman, in a uniform so polished it shone, handed him an envelope before saluting and walking away.  
  
Still half-asleep, he sat down at his kitchen table to open it.  
  
Lars Tenobor  
71 Spiffy Upper-Class Street  
Veldarah, Eastern Continent  
  
Said the address, in curly script, and in the left-hand corner was written a return address-  
  
Te’ijal Ravenfoot  
Somewhere or other, ask the nearest raven  
Ends of the World, The World.  
  
  
The envelope itself was battered, crumpled, and stained with something suspiciously like blood. The letter inside was not in much better shape.  
  
 _Dear Lars_ , he read.  
  
 _I was climbing up a tree yesterday evening. It was an interesting experience, particularly when Galahad started throwing rocks. He is so_  very  _cute, I fall more in love with him by the day.  
  
In any case I was climbing up a tree yesterday when Galahad asked me if I didn’t have anything better to do than insist on preventing him from his multiple silly suicide attempts. (Although he phrased it more in terms of escaping from the hellish torment I had bestowed upon him. Isn’t he incredible? He has such a way with words. I haven’t half the talent for compliments that he has.)  
  
I considered the question and realized that in fact I did not. I told him as much, and reassured him that he needn’t worry, because climbing up trees and swimming across piranha-infested rivers and escaping from violent mobs just to protect him and be with him forever and ever is more than enough entertainment for me.  
  
“But surely there are other ways of being entertained,” he insisted. “Don’t you ever read? Study politics? Write letters?”  
  
I haven’t the slightest interest in reading, and I do not need to waste time on politics. But writing letters sounded like fun and I have decided to try it in my spare time. I’ve already written three to Mad Marge, but she keeps responding with big angry drawings done entirely in black. The last one gave Galahad nightmares when he read it by accident, and nearly killed the servant who stumbled across it while cleaning our room, so I’m writing to you instead.   
  
Please say hello to Rhen for me, and ask her to write- I would have written her myself, but I don’t know her address since she ran away from that wedding. Tell her that I’d love to hear the details, as I only got to see what happened in the hall, before the angry mob broke out.   
  
Love,  
Te’ijal  
  
P.S. Galahad would send his regards, but he is currently too busy sulking about being handcuffed to the bed.  
  
P.P.S. Don’t bother pretending that you don’t know where Rhen is, either.   
  
P.P.P.S. How_ is  _Rhen? Have you managed to steal her soul and get her to marry you, yet? Except that Galahad keeps telling me human marriages don’t work like that. Pity, it would be so romantic if you did (I would know)._    
  
He stared at the last postscript and laughed, the sort of half-mad laugh you had when you’d been woken early from a terrible sleep the morning after finding out your long-time crush considered you the one person in the universe she would never be attracted to, to be confronted with a letter from a vampire who ranked second only to Elini in terms of sheer derangement, in which said vampire managed to not only traumatize you for life but to also casually reveal that she knew about aforementioned crush, at which point you started wondering how many other people had noticed said crush, at which point you started wanting to bash your head against something extremely hard.  
  
A  _special_  laugh.   
  
He laughed and then he choked and then he got up to get a glass of water.  
  
\----  
  
The thing was. The thing was that at this point it didn’t matter anymore, that she didn’t see him that way.   
  
Somewhere all along he’d known, that it couldn’t work out. He’d been resigned to it. It was the Goddess’s little bit of karmic justice, that he’d fallen in love with the girl he’d treated so horribly when he was a kid. It was the perfect punishment, if only because he knew his misery had been caused entirely by himself.   
  
So maybe two, three months ago he could have taken her complete lack of interest as the impetus to give up on her. He’d tried and succeeded- sort of- when she’d gotten engaged to Dameon. He’d tried again, when they had that fight.  
  
But then they’d gotten over it. And something had changed. Maybe because they’d spent so much time together. On the quest, by the time he’d started liking her they were already traveling with a group of people, and Rhen found it easy to avoid him- which she did a lot, back then. And after that…  
  
It wasn’t like he’d gotten to know her better. It was hard to spend a good year traveling under some of the most ridiculous conditions and  _not_  get to know her, her kindness and her strength and her courage and…   
  
It was just that he’d…. well, gotten to know her. In the course of all the conversations that they’d had, that they never could have had before, he had discovered all the little stupid annoying things about her, the convoluted ways she thought sometimes, her insecurities, her problems. He discovered he could actually relate to her, not in a cautious arms-length way but in a relaxed, comfortable, utterly enjoyable way instead. And he discovered she could do the same.  
  
And last night he’d realized- as he’d been so resolutely focused on ignoring her and then without even realizing it, automatically he’d caught her as she fell, because still somewhere he couldn’t help but be aware, always, of where she was in a room in relation to him- last night he’d realized it was hopeless.  
  
It wasn’t that he couldn’t live without her. It was just that he didn’t want to. That he  _truly_  didn’t want to, all the way down to his bones. And so he’d just pretend that nothing had changed and maybe nothing had really changed and maybe he had known it would be like this all along, but he’d gone along because-.   
  
Hypothetically it would be easier to live without her. He just couldn’t imagine how it would be possible, anymore.


	21. Chapter 21

That morning, Rhen woke in a state of excitement, one of those days where she opened her eyes and already her brain was up and running. She began mentally listing all the things she would need to do to prepare for the competition but was continually interrupted by increasingly more extravagant daydreams of what it would be like when she won.  
  
“And now, Rhen Darzon, in honor of being appointed High Swordsinger you may ask one request and be guaranteed that it will be granted.”  
  
“Ban slavery forever and ever,” she said, and the crowd exploded into cheers and Sirona looked like she had swallowed a poisonous frog and Lars…  
  
And Lars…  
  
Well, of course Lars was happy. Right. They would win together, obviously.  
  
She frowned, irritated. She couldn’t imagine his reaction.  
  
Well, what would she say to him?  
  
“We did it, Lars.”  
  
Or  
  
“I guess we became High’s at the same time, in the end.”  
  
Or. Or.  
  
Whatever. She’d figure it out when the time came.  
  
In the meantime she’d have to start preparing with Lars immediately. There was no time to waste. They were at a disadvantage already, because teaching would cut down on their preparation time. They would just have to spend every spare second that they could get their hands on practicing.  
  
\----  
  
“Absolutely not,” he said.  
  
She sputtered.  
  
“Wh-what do you mean?”  
  
“Are you joking? Do you honestly think I’m going to waste my extremely precious and, might I mention, rather rare free time practicing for this? I already told you that it’s hopeless, but you can go ahead if you want. Just don’t expect me to give up everything just to humor you.”   
  
She stared at him, fork halfway to her mouth.  
  
The bell rang.  
  
She stared at him, fork halfway to her mouth.  
  
He got up and left.  
  
“B-but Lars!” She said, jerking out of her trance, but he was already half out the door. The bell rang again and she realized she was going to be late for her class.  
  
She fumbled wildly for her papers and rushed after him.  
  
\----  
  
“But- but  _why_?” she said, for the fifth time in as many minutes.  
  
He ignored her.  
  
“I don’t understand. What reason could you possibly have-  _Oh_.”  
  
He twitched, fighting the impulse to ask. He was ignoring her, after all. There was just something the slightest bit disconcerting about that-  
  
“Ooooh,” she said again.   
  
“ _What?_ ” He said, impatiently.  
  
“ _I_  get it. You’re  _afraid_!”  
  
“What- I- No, I’m-“  
  
“Ickle baby Lars, afraid of the big bad sorcerers with their shiny sticks!”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.  
  
“Oh yeah? What better explanation do you have? They’re too  _experienced_ , we’re not famous enough… all of that is just another way of saying that Lars Tenobor is a big giant coward.”  
  
“I’m a  _coward_?” He said, incredulously. “Are you forgetting who it was who saved your wimpy little butt time and time again? ‘Oh, help me, Lars, there’s a giant gang of wolves who think I look like a delicious side of bacon! Waaah, Lars, this troll keeps dodging my attacks, do something! I just got bitten by a poisonous snake, help! I just got bitten by a poisonous toad, help! I just got bitten by a poisonous mushroom, help!’”  
  
“Oh, like there wasn’t an awful lot of me saving your butt as well. ‘Rhen, Rhen! I’m out of mana and I forgot to restock on supplies! This stupid monster is immune to magic and has really bad breath! Oh god no, my custom-tailored clothes are getting mauled!’ At least  _I_  could do a physical attack in a pinch- without mana you were next to useless.”  
  
He bristled. “It was almost always  _your_  fault when we ran out of supplies. Oh, sorry, Lars, I was too busy staring into Dameon’s dreamy eyes to notice that we were all half out of hp and had no meat left!”  
  
“…Come to think of it, he probably did that on purpose.” Rhen said, thoughtfully.   
  
“Don’t try blaming it on him, he barely had to do  _anything_  for you to fall into a swoon.”  
  
“Well he was  _charming_! Something you most definitely are not, I might add.”  
  
He turned away, furious.   
  
“Oh god. Lars, don’t sulk.”  
  
He gritted his teeth.  
  
“Okay, he was charming, but he was also evil and brainwashed and a liar. And he had issues! Serious ones! And a seriously god-awful hair-cut. You don’t need to get all jealous-“  
  
He whirled on her. “Why would I be  _jealous_? Whatever gave you that idea?”  
  
She swallowed, backing away.  
  
“The point is,” she said, in a smaller voice. “I think you’re just afraid. Because you know that I will be the very best at this competition. I’ll leave you so far in the dust that people will think you’re a dirt floor by accident. And then everyone will laugh at you. So ha.”  
  
The ‘ha’ dangled useless and limp from the end of her sentence.  
  
“I don’t think you get it,” He hissed. “Doesn’t it bother you, too? Don’t you find it a little ridiculous, getting all worked up by this silly little competition- no, never mind, don’t answer that. It’s obvious that you don’t even notice.”  
  
“Don’t notice what?”  
  
“That it’s all one big ridiculous anti-climax. What, didn’t it bother you, coming back and realizing that barely anyone knew or cared about what we did? Actually, forget that. That’s not my point, that everyone else- What I mean is, what about you? Doesn’t it feel a bit ridiculous? You wielded the  _sword of shadows_ , by the goddess. What are you doing now? Waving wooden practice swords around?”  
  
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Are you bored? Is that what it is? Because then it doesn’t make sense why you’re not interested, it seems like this is exactly the thing you should be desperate to do-“  
  
“No! Because it feels so stupid, now. The world used to be so big and open and huge and sorcery used to be pretty much everything but- I swung around weapons most sorcerers only dream of. I learned pretty much everything the guilds had to teach- I saved the world, Rhen!” He said. “I was sixteen and I saved the world! It’s pretty much impossible to top that, no matter how hard I try!”  
  
She looked at him for a moment, considering.  
  
“…Nope,” she said, finally. “I still think you’re just scared cause you know that you can’t win against me. Chicken-head.” She stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
“And also…” she said. “You didn’t save the world. I did. Nice try, though. You get points for effort.”   
  
He opened his mouth. Then closed it.  
  
She patted him on the back. “I get what you’re saying,” she said. “It did feel ridiculous coming back down to… to real life. It’s all so small and petty. But that’s part of the challenge, isn’t it? You have to be more careful, almost. Things are more complicated. But it’s not necessarily such a bad thing… you still learn a lot of things you never knew, it’s just a different kind of learning. A different kind of…”  
  
“But,” he said, miserably. “But it’s not  _exciting_  anymore. All the excitement is gone. All the  _challenge_  is gone.”  
  
“That’s an exaggeration,” she said. “There’s still challenge. Dealing with students isn’t  _that_  easy, even for you. And more than that- you can’t get the adventure back just by wishing. It’s gone. It was a stage of our lives and it’s over and even if I miss it I’m kinda glad. That we’ve had the opportunity to grow past where we were back then. Both of us. But besides that- you can’t just shove everything aside because it won’ be quite as perfect as what you think you used to have. If you’re feeling this pointless that’s all the more reason we should do this thing. Prove that we can.”  
  
“And then what? Then there’s literally nothing left. What do I do, Rhen, when there’s nowhere left to go because I got it all? Every dream I had?”  
  
“Make new dreams,” she said, firmly. “Instead of excuses. I think you’re underestimating life. There’s always room to push yourself.”   
  
He closed his eyes and breathed in, softly, in assent.  
  
She gave him a quick hug.  
  
“And now we really need to start practicing,” she said.  
  
He grinned, an evil grin.  
  
“Uh,” she said.  
  
“What was that you said about me not being able to beat you?” 


	22. Chapter 22

“Breathe in slowly,” she instructed. “Now swing down. Breathe out. Swing to the side. Breathe in- Stop.”  
  
Gaden obediently lowered his sword.  
  
“Try that again. Slower this time.”  
  
“This is kinda boring,” he complained.  
  
She swung at him, sharply. His blade swung up instinctively, and he winced as the magic flared.  
  
“You don’t get to complain until you have your sorcery under control,” she told him. “Go eat some cheese and then start over. A hundred rounds.”  
  
He grumbled, but as the cracked, broken skin of his arm faded slowly into itself, re-stitching fibers as he ate, he was already picking up his sword again, resigned to doing what needed to be done.  
  
He was a good student, she would grant him that.  
  
\----  
  
“Kyliiie.” She said, exasperated. “Did you do your drills last night?”  
  
“Of course!” Kylie said, all wide-eyed innocence.  
  
“Really.” Rhen said.  
  
Kylie looked away.  
  
“Really.” Rhen repeated.  
  
Kylie drooped.  
  
“I’m sorry…” She said. “Hio had his birthday last night, and I… I’ll make them up tonight. I promise.”  
  
Rhen relented. “Alright, then. Let’s spend today reviewing what we covered last week, then.”  
  
\----  
  
“So, I noticed you’ve been absent for a week.”  
  
Hio bristled. “I had stuff. Official stuff. And family stuff.”  
  
“Happy birthday,” she said.  
  
“How did you know?” He said, then stopped himself. “Right. Kylie. Duh.”  
  
“She’s really nice,” Rhen said.  
  
“Yes,” he said shortly. The tips of his ears turned red.  
  
Rhen coughed to hide her laugh.   
  
\----  
  
And then as soon as classes were over she ran to the left-side training field to meet Lars.  
  
Of course he was already there. Smirking. Hugely.  
  
He didn’t say anything, though, simply watched her run up, panting, with that smug little smile on his face.  
  
“We should head up to the upper cloud training field,” he said, as she bent over, breathing heavily. “It’s safest for us to practice well out of the way.”  
  
“For us?” she said, straightening up.  
  
“For them,” he said, brushing his hand through his hair.  
  
She had to hand it to him, once he got over his hang-ups he had thrown himself into this seriously. Too seriously, she though, irritated by his smirk. Only he was kind of a little bit hot when he got this intense and competitive.   
  
She had definitely not just thought that. There was no way that observation could possibly have just crossed her mind.  
  
As soon as they got to the field she turned on him, sending a huge slashing attack at him that ripped up the magic-coated ground so that chunks of gravel went flying.   
  
“Woah, woah!” He said, but she ignored him, throwing every inch of her concentration into attacking him, definitely not thinking about anything else at all, not that she would have been thinking of anything, of course, just that by focusing on the matter at hand she could be positive she wasn’t.  
  
And then finally he dove behind a rock just long enough so he could summon up a spell and then they were both firing off at each other, until, exhausted, they collapsed in mutual defeat.  
  
“Draw?” He offered, laying on the ground, face coated with sweat.  
  
“For now,” she offered, barely able to summon up enough energy to move her lips. Her every limb ached.  
  
“We should’ve been doing this more often,” he said. “It’s kinda fun.”  
  
“I’m just glad I bought plenty of elixirs,” she said, draining one. She rose slowly, stretching her sore muscles. “Let’s do that again.”  
  
“In a moment,” he pleaded.  
  
“In a moment I’ll have won,” she said.  
  
He scrambled upwards. “Alright, fine, you horrid woman.”  
  
“I’m not horrid-“ she protested, and was cut off by his spell.  
  
“No fair!” She jumped backwards. “I was busy responding!”  
  
“All’s fair in love and war, didn’t you know? Only sore losers whine about ‘fair’,” he said, sticking out his tongue. He was already casting another attack.  
  
She lunged forward, cutting him off so he had to parry, but he then cast a lesser-spell short-range and she had to stumble backwards and then they were at it again.  
  
\----  
  
The sun’s last rays were starting to fade when, as they crawled yet again with weary habit towards their healing supplies, Lars suggested that they break for dinner.  
  
“C’mon,” he said, and helped her up. “We have six months ahead of us. No point in killing ourselves already.”  
  
“Your treat?” She said, hopefully.  
  
“Absolutely not. I know better by now.”  
  
He bore a look of such informed horror that she had to laugh.  
  
“By the way,” he offered, casually, “Te’ijal wrote.”  
  
“She did? Oh, how lovely. I kind of miss her.”  
  
“I don’t.” He said, wincing.  
  
“Poor Lars. You have  _such_  luck with women.”  
  
“I know,” he said dolefully.  
  
“At least you have me, to provide a little normalcy and perspective.”  
  
“Right. Because that’s what you provide. Perspective.”  
  
“Whaat? Surely you can admit I’m less… unique… then Te’ijal. Or Elini. Or Mad Marge. Not that I don’t love them all dearly- okay, except maybe Mad Marge- I just think any objective observer, or even a subjective one, could still admit that.”  
  
“And yet with all their multiple whims they still manage not to cause me half the heartache you do,” he said, completely sincere.  
  
“I do?” She said.   
  
“Alright, maybe two-thirds,” he conceded. “Te’ijal can be really freaky, and sometimes Elini starts to talk about whips. I really don’t understand why anyone would possibly think I care or want to hear about- and oh lord Mad Marge bad memories bad bad bad....”  
  
“Um… Lars?” Rhen said.  
  
He shook his head as if clearing away some thoughts, and said, mechanically- “Sorry. Buried trauma. Have succeeded in repressing it again.”  
  
“How about this time it’s my treat?” Rhen offered, trying to be comforting.  
  
He shuddered.   
  
“Lars?”  
  
“What? Oh, right. Yeah. That would be nice.”  
  
\----  
  
They were walking to the café when they passed the tumblers, dressed in gaudy colors and prancing around a sign that advertised the upcoming circus, right outside the city limits.  
  
“That looks like fun,” Rhen said.  
  
“Not really,” Lars said. “I hate circuses. And clowns.”  
  
“Clown are freaky,” Rhen agreed. “Nonetheless, these kinds of things always sell spells and stuff.”  
  
“Why do we need spells?”  
  
“It never hurts to increase your supply…”  
  
He couldn’t really argue with that. So after they finished eating- Rhen still ate a large amount, but only of the very cheapest items on the menu- they set off for the outskirts of the city.  
  
It was evening and cool and pleasant, as the desert wind whipped their hair back and Rhen started laughing and twirling around.  
  
“I think I kinda love Veldarah,” she said. “It’s really different from my hometown, you know. It’s all sandstone and palm trees but it- times like this when the wind blows I just sort of feel free. In a way.”  
  
“And in the middle of the day it’s too hot and in the middle of the night it’s too cold,” he reminded her.  
  
“Well yeah. But I don’t- I dunno. I like it here. It’s nice.”   
  
“It never seemed that special to me,” he said. “I was always just used to it. I preferred the Wildwoods. And Sedona. Those were both nice. But I guess I kinda missed it here… after all, I did come back.”  
  
“Mmm.” she said. “I wonder why I didn’t go back home, also… Somehow I came back and it didn’t feel like home, anymore. It felt like a dress that got too small.”  
  
“…We’re here,” he said, and pointed to the bright flag waving from the top of a striped tent.  
  
\---  
  
“40,000 gold? For a fireworks spell? Are you kidding me?”  
  
“Take it or leave it, miss,” the circus man said. “It’s the most popular spell down south these days, I could be selling it for twice the price. Taking the skin off my own back, it is, making it this cheap.”  
  
“Mhm,” she said, lips pursed.   
  
Teaching did not pay nearly as well as hacking up monsters in far-off lands. And the creatures that scuttled around near Veldarah were worth nearly nothing at all.  
  
Still. Technically she had enough money. It would just make her feel better if the man would lower the price. Even a few hundred gold would mean a bigger dinner tonight…  
  
“How about a discount deal? I buy this mirror spell as well, and you lower the price for both of us by 500 coins?” Lars suggested.  
  
“Buy a Burst of Flowers and make it 200 coins and you have a deal,” the salesman said.  
  
“Are you kidding? That useless scroll? Why on earth would I want it? Forget it, Rhen, we don’t need these spells anyway. These prices are highway robbery.”  
  
“300 coins,” the salesman said, grabbing hold of Lars’s arm. “And that’s starving my wife and kids, it is.”  
  
“450 or no deal,” Lars said.  
  
“400.”  
  
Lars hesitated. “Fine,” he said.  
  
They paid and walked off.  
  
“We just got completely cheated,” Lars said. “Those spells  _together_  shouldn’t have cost more than 30,000 gold.”  
  
“Sorry,” she offered, limply.  
  
“And what am I supposed to do with this useless scroll?” he said, disgustedly. “I know what it is, it’s a stupid flower-summoning spell. Stupidest thing ever.”  
  
“I heard those were supposed to be really pretty,” she said, hesitantly.  
  
“Oh, yay,  _pretty_. That’s just what we need.”  
  
“Well,  _I’d_  like to see it, anyway,” she said, loftily. “I bet you it’s really nice.”  
  
“You’re asking me to give you a flower-spell,” he said, flatly. “Really, Rhen?”  
  
“What?” she said, uncomfortably. Her face felt hot, and she was pretty sure she might be blushing. Dammit, she blushed way too easily. It was humiliating.  
  
She looked away.  
  
“You don’t have to if you don’t want,” she said. “Save it for someone you like or something.”  
  
He shoved it into her hands. She shoved it back.  
  
“Just take it!” He said. “I don’t even want it!”  
  
“Well, neither do I!” she said, eyes stinging.  
  
“One second- why the heck are you crying?”  
  
“Nothing! I don’t know! It doesn’t matter and I don’t care! It’s none of my business who you give flowers to anyway!”  
  
“Damn right it isn’t!” He said. “So shut up and take them already!”  
  
She shoved the scroll back into his hands. The back of her hand scraped against the parchment’s edge and it unrolled with a swoosh.  
  
A giant puff of purple smoke billowed out of the scroll. It dispersed to reveal a small pathetic bundle of half-wilted zinnias, lying on the ground.  
  
For a moment they were both speechless.  
  
“I- I paid 10,000 gold for this?!?” Lars yelped.   
  
Rhen knelt to pick up the flowers. Their stems crumbled in her hands.  
  
“Wow. Just wow.” She said. “After all that fuss…”  
  
They looked at each other. Then at the flowers, which were turning from purple to a sickly greenish-grey.  
  
And then they both started to laugh.  
  
“Ahahaha! Letting his kids starve, my foot! He probably got that for free from a rubbish bin!” Rhen choked out between giggles.  
  
“He probably… he probably… got paid by someone just to take it away!” Lars said, doubled over.  
  
“Oh please, dear sir, these poor unfortunate zinnias!”  
  
“My heart! Those p-poor unfortunate fl-flowe- AHAHAHAHA oh my sides they hurt.”  
  
Lars tumbled onto the sand and lay there, laughing helplessly, rolling from side to side.   
  
“H-help me up, Rhen, I don’t think I can breathe…”  
  
“N-neither can I,” she said, helping him stagger upwards before they both collapsed, again.  
  
“Did you notice how they curled in on themselves? It was truly a masterpiece.”  
  
“I don’t think flowers could be that pathetic if they tried. It was truly something special.”  
  
“We should count ourselves lucky for having witnessed it.”   
  
“Yes indeed,” she said, the laughter beginning to subside. She wiped away the dampness in her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard I cried before, you know?”  
  
“…I don’t even think we could properly explain to anyone else what was so funny about it,” he said, glancing dolefully at the few specks of dust that remained of the flowers.  
  
“That’s fine,” she said, “this way it’s just ours.”  
  
“Yeah, but people will think we’re crazy.”  
  
“Let them,” she said, “we’ll know”. She grinned at him. “What a lovely, thoughtful gift. I think I’d like it ag- I think I’d like it again for my-“ She burst into giggles, yet again.  
  
“I’ll be sure to buy it for your birthday,” he said, and didn’t manage a straight face in the slightest.  
  
They laughed their way into the city and didn’t care, that several people turned and stared.


	23. Chapter 23

All three of her students couldn’t help but notice how exhausted she was, lately. But it couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t that she was going to bed abnormally late- in fact, she was going to bed earlier than ever- it was just that she was collapsing utterly exhausted because fighting Lars was simply the most exhausting thing ever.  
  
Okay, actually she’d been more tired after defeating Ahriman. Dead, bone-tired. She’d slept for three days, in fact. But besides Ahriman and some of the Daevas, there weren’t really that many battles she’d fought that were as plain and simple challenging as thinking of new ways to trip up Lars every day.  
  
And it was one-on-one, as well. So there was no one covering her back or casting healing spells. No, she had to pay attention all by herself.  
  
“Actually, that’s a problem,” Lars said. “We can’t only practice at fighting individual opponents. We need to think of some way to practice fighting groups.”  
  
“If Elini was here she could mass summon some demons for us,” Rhen suggested.  
  
“Only she’s not,” Lars said. “And don’t you  _dare_  consider trying to contact her. Nowing my luck she’d probably decide to come.”  
  
“What  _is_ it with you and Elini, anyway?”  
  
“She has-“  _blackmail material against me, and she’s bloody annoying about it too,_  he thought, but didn’t say it. Because that would be a bad, bad topic to even come close to, in present company.  
  
“What?” Rhen said.  
  
“Nothing,” he said. “She has some ridiculous notion that every man in the world must be desperate to have her marry him.”  
  
“Oh right,” Rhen said. “I remember she used to bug you about that.” She narrowed her eyes. “One second- you didn’t actually like her, did you?”  
  
“No!” He said, indignant.  
  
“Are you  _sure_?”  
  
“…Dead positive. As in, over my dead body positive.”  
  
“Mmm,” Rhen said. “Alright then. How do we go about solving this multiple fighters problem?”  
  
\----  
  
“You know, I have to say I’m glad I took that lamp. If I’d let you have it, you would have left it in Thais just like everything else.”  
  
“Yeah, okay, I’d like to see you trying to carry all that much stuff while wearing a dress with a giant, extremely heavy hoop on the bottom and lots of crinolines and a corset that makes your chest do funny things.” She thought about that for a moment. “Actually, on second thought, I’d really rather not see that, if you please.”  
  
“…Yeah. Okay. I’ll just pretend you never said that.”  
  
“Good idea.”  
  
“…Maybe we should get going.”  
  
“I’m ready when you are.”  
  
“Okay. Great.”  
  
He rubbed the lamp vigorously and then they were back in a familiar Arabian-style palace.  
  
“We want to fight quite a few of them at once," he said, "seeing as that's the entire reason we're here-"  
  
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be the bait, you get some cover spells ready.” She took off at a run, keeping close to the walls.  
  
\---  
  
Forty minutes later they staggered out of the lamp with a pop, covered in injuries and gasping. They had run through all their healing supplies and had had to flee.  
  
“Oh god,” Rhen said, through gasps, “that was a lot harder than I remembered it being.”  
  
“Yeah, but you’re not wielding a sword of power right now. It was pretty impressive we managed to survive at all.”  
  
“I hate to admit this but using the lamp is a good idea… because at least we can choose what location to come back to… Oh god I need an elixir so bad right now.”  
  
“I think if we lean on each other we might just be able to stagger our way to the supplies cabinet.”  
  
“I think I’m on the verge of dying, actually.”  
  
“I have a cassea leaf for that.”  
  
“I hate those things, they taste like vomit mixed with charcoal.”  
  
“Well, there has to be  _some_  downside to coming back from the dead.”  
  
“Can we just get some elixir before I pass out, please?” She said, weakly. “I don’t think I can possibly have more than 5 hp left.”  
  
They stumbled and staggered their way towards the box of medical supplies, leaning on each other for support.   
  
When they had drained their elixirs, they stood up properly, refreshed.  
  
Rhen laughed weakly. “Don’t think I’ve leaned on you like that since back when we ventured into the Wildwoods when we were just sent on our quest.”  
  
“Remember when those wolves seemed actually scary? Haha.”  
  
“Yeah. God, I hated you so much back then. You were such a smug little brat.”  
  
“Don’t worry, at the time the feeling was richly mutual.”  
  
“I seem to remember that you kept hiding behind trees and tripping me.”  
  
“Sorry,” he said.  
  
“It’s okay. I already forgave you ages ago-”  
  
“I appreciate that you forgave me, but I don’t think what I did was that forgivable.”  
  
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Kids can be really horrible but as long as they grow up and grow out of it it’s better to forget it, because… whatever. People are really stupid when they’re kids.”  
  
“I think, even so, there are some things you don’t ever really forgive yourself for.” He said, carefully, and thought of a long-ago Rhen with no sparkle in her eyes and a skinny, scrawny frame, kneeling with a washcloth as she scrubbed the floor so that her long hair fell over her face and almost hid the fact that she was quietly crying.  
  
“Mmm,” she said, and thought of her wedding dress- fourteen weeks work of constant, careful embroidery and silk, something that every citizen in Thais had contributed towards creating, because they had put all their hopes and faith in her, their long lost queen- lying torn and muddy at the bottom of a dump somewhere.


	24. Chapter 24

One day she swung her arm up in an underslash and Gaden parried, and for a moment she hesitated in anticipation, of the moan of pain that had become so familiar, and in that moment he swung at her fiercely. She had to divert his blow, as she dodged to the side and then flicked her wrist to disarm him-  
  
And he stood there panting with exertion far beyond the physical maneuver he had executed.  
  
They stared at each other for a moment in shock. Then Rhen let out a whoop and hugged him.  
  
“I am so, so incredibly proud of you,” she said, and could feel her face splitting in two from how wide her smile was.  
  
“I still have a lot to work on,” he said, hesitantly hugging her back. He sounded kind of choked, but when they pulled apart he had already hurriedly wiped his eyes dry.  
  
This must be what the joy of teaching was, she thought, as she left the classroom with a spring in her step. She did not think she would forget the look on his face for the rest of her life.  
  
\---  
  
Good things came in flocks, apparently. That day Kylie got everything right, and Hio didn’t make a single snarky comment the entire class, too intent was he on the rather complicated footwork Rhen had decided to teach him.  
  
On her way to tell Lars she passed, of all people, Sirona- just for a moment, going down a perpendicular hallway. It made her grin. Let Sirona have her classroom full of kids- Rhen Darzon was more than happy to have her three. Any of whom were worth more than all of Sirona’s charges combined, anyway.  
  
\---  
  
When she rounded the hallway of Lars’s classroom she slowed to a halt.  
  
Lars was talking to someone. Specifically, a pink-haired woman in high heels whose hand, as Rhen watched, brushed lightly against Lars’s shoulder as she spoke. They were standing apart, but just barely.  
  
She swallowed and then willed herself to keep walking.  
  
“Well, I tried as you said,” the woman said, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, “but then the oldest kid, a little devil, started using his stick to play on pretend drums and after that it all just fell apart.”  
  
“Kids do that sometimes,” Lars said.  
  
The woman giggled. “Oh god, you’re so right!”  
  
What the heck was funny about that? Rhen thought, sourly. She cleared her throat.  
  
“So, in any case, I was wondering-“ the woman said, but Lars had turned and noticed Rhen standing there.  
  
“I’m  _so_  sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb,” Rhen said, snappishly. (What the heck was wrong with her? Why was she feeling so irritated? Somewhere inside of her the rational part of her brain was insisting that she has no reason to be annoyed.)  
  
“It’s fine, Amalia and I were just done talking anyway. Right?” He smiled his bright, Lars-being-a-slimy-charmer smile at the woman- Amalia. He’d even used that look on the Empress, Rhen thought, bitterly.  
  
Amalia flushed and nodded, but lingered, clearly unwilling to leave.  
  
Lars, however, was not sticking around.  
  
“What did you want to tell me?” He asked, already striding down the hallway.  
  
“What makes you think I want to tell you anything?” Rhen said, still annoyed, even if she hadn’t the slightest clue why. “Maybe I just came to pick you up for our practice.”  
  
“Right.” He said, raising his eyebrows. “Except you never do that.”  
  
She sighed. “Sorry. I’m being weird. It’s stupid. Especially because actually I should be really happy- I am really happy- Gaden made his first breakthrough today and I feel incredible. I’m so proud of him and it’s great and I really want you to come by later and check out his sorcery. And Kylie and Hio were really cooperative today and I feel like I got so much done. It’s great. I’m really happy about it actually. I was just a little impatient to tell you, that’s all.”  
  
“That’s really incredible,” he said. “And I think I will, later. But wow, Rhen! That’s really great!”  
  
He grinned at her.  
  
She found herself grinning back.  
  
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it really is.”  
  
“I know this is a bad idea,” he said, “and I’m sure I’ll regret it later, but an occasion like this I think justifies it so- how about we eat out tonight? My treat.”  
  
“I’d  _love_  to,” she said, with such enthusiasm that he laughed.  
  
\----  
  
Later that evening, after Lars had already had an hour-long session with Gaden in which he’d announced that Gaden might finally be ready to start learning sorcery properly, they headed off to their usual practice ground to continue training.  
  
The cloud fields were spelled so that they didn’t retain any damage or changes, otherwise their field would probably have been demolished within a week of Lars and Rhen’s practices there. But then again, that was what they were designed for, as practice grounds for experienced sorcerers and swordsingers who wouldn’t be able to let loose anywhere else.  
  
Tonight, however, Rhen and Lars were going on a team mission into the genie’s lamp. Lars unrolled it from its cloth covering and laid it on the ground, next to a pile of potions. They were both taking many with them, as well.   
  
Practice had helped, but fighting a mass of myrs with only the two of them and the reasonably good weapons that they had borrowed from the school armory since their first borderline-disastrous run was still insanely hard.  
  
Which was good, Rhen reminded herself, as she rounded yet another corner of the castle, her breath baited. It meant they were learning, if it was hard.  
  
Today it was her turn to be bait. Lars got to lounge around by the entrance, all relaxed, while she-  
  
“Hey, you! Ugly! Yeah, you, the one with the scrawny little legs and stubby horns!” Rhen called.  
  
The myr, who had been ignoring her, turned once she mentioned the legs, and when she got to the horns it charged.  
  
Rhen grinned as she ran. After a while you got a sense of what parts myrs were most self-conscious about.  
  
Except she needed him to call a few friends, as well.  
  
“A troll could out-run you!” She shouted back, for good measure. Myrs and trolls had not gotten along since before Ahriman’s first rising.  
  
The myr took a deep breath and charged.  
  
She dodged, skittering around another corner-  
  
“Hey, what’s going on here?” growled two myrs, clearly just woken from a nap. She gulped and zoomed between them, barely passing them, and then the first myr barreled around the corner and the chase was on.  
  
Where was Lars? She thought, as her lungs started to ache. Where was that stupid sorcero-  
  
A blast of magic from the next corner barely missed her as it passed her to singe one of the myrs, giving off the disgusting stench of burnt fur.  
  
“You could have hit me!” She protested, as Lars emerged, smirking.  
  
“Yeah, but I didn’t,” he said. “Care to lend a hand?”  
  
At last she could turn and face the myrs. But another one had emerged from somewhere-   
  
“I’ve been evading that bugger, he showed up by the entrance, not a pretty picture,” Lars said in between spells-  
  
And then they were back to back and fighting for their lives, as always.  
  
Rhen broke formation for a moment to lunge at the closest myr’s belly, momentarily exposed. She plunged her sword in, and as she drew it out the myr poofed into nothing- that always happened, in the Genie’s lamp.  
  
She drew back, but not before another myr’s kicked out viciously with a hoofed foot and caught her in the ribs. She had misjudged the distance between them.  
  
“Augh,” she managed to groan, coughing up blood.   
  
“Are you okay?” Lars said.  
  
“Shut up and concentrate on fighting,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” She snatched a potion from the looped belt she was hanging the bottles from and drank it. Thank the goddess Lars had money to buy elixirs, she did not think meat and cheese was enough for this kind of fighting.  
  
The three remaining myrs had retreated beyond a corner, which was always a sign that when they came back they would be using a unified strategy. It was just a question of whether she and Lars would be able to catch on fast enough to evade it.  
  
But when they emerged it was in standard pincer formation, kind of disappointing actually, not really a challenge at all.   
  
She kept her eye out for a twist- some sudden lunge by a flank myr or anything like that- but instead they proved, relatively speaking, easy to dispatch, especially once Lars caught them in a group spell and critically injured two of them.  
  
“Alright,” Rhen said at last, as they cleaned off the loot they had gathered and packed it with the rest of their things, “let’s get going. I’m starved.”


	25. Chapter 25

Except for piles of leftover monster goop, their path back to the entrance was clear. Lars, other than letting that one myr get through, had done his job and protected their way back properly.  
  
Rhen felt enormously encouraged by the ease with which they had dispatched the myrs. “I really think we’re getting better,” she said, excitedly. “I think even back when we were a full party it wasn’t much easier than this.”  
  
“Yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Lars said, wearily. “We were lucky today, lots of critical hits on our part and missed attacks on theirs. And a clumsily executed attack formation- I don’t think we should rely on it too much.”  
  
“Well, sure,” Rhen said, walking backwards for a moment so she could face him as she talked, “but nonetheless even if it was partially a fluke, that we managed to get in so many good shots still means somethi- AAH!”  
  
She slipped on a tile slick with monster guts and flailed as she fell backwards hard, landing on her leg at an awkward angle so that it splayed out underneath her.  
  
She moaned, as the pain spasmed through her like a knife.  
  
Lars was at her side in an instant.  
  
“Rhen? Are you okay? Did you break anything?”  
  
She stopped him as he was raising his hands to perform a healing spell.  
  
“Don’t bother,” she said, shakily. “It’s not broken, I think- just twisted a little maybe.”  
  
“I could still-“ he said.  
  
“You suck at healing spells,” she said, bluntly. “I’d rather just take a potion, really.”  
  
“I do not!” He said, indignant.  
  
“Yes, you do.” She said, and despite the pain in her leg she laughed. “Do you remember that time in the Demon Caverns? I tripped on that big rock and got a huge gash across my knee… and then you tried to heal me and somehow managed to make an enormous rockslide. Dameon ended up having to heal me while Elini summoned a Daeva to extricate us.”  
  
“I was just-“  
  
“Or that other time, in Sedona? One of the streetlamps exploded and I went blind for a day or so and you probably would’ve, I don’t know, turned me into a frog or something if Elini hadn’t bodily restrained you-“  
  
“I would  _not_!” He protested.   
  
She raised an eyebrow at him.  
  
“…Okay, fine. But my intentions were good!“  
  
“Intentions shmentions, I’d much rather try my luck with an elixir, if you please,” she said, and reached for a bottle, only to find she was all out. She turned beseechingly towards him and he handed her one, then ended up helping her drink it because her hand was shaking too much to hold it properly.  
  
She drank deeply and barely grimaced at the sickly-sweet taste, felt the feeling of it wash over her, leaving her tingling in an unpleasant way.   
  
“I guess you wish it was Dameon here with you,” he said, a bit sulkily.  
  
Even through the haze of elixir-induced dizziness, she could still hear the bitter edge in his voice.  
  
“That’s not what I meant, Lars-“  
  
“No, no, you mean it when you say my healing sucks.”  
  
“Well. Okay, yeah. I do. But-“  
  
“But what?” He said, turning on her, with a bile that surprised her. “He’s clearly better able to help you than I am-  _and_  you still love him. It should seem obvious you’d wish he were here instead of me.”   
  
“I don’t love Dameon!”  
  
“You said it yourself that you thought you didn’t but really you did!”  
  
“I- He- It’s complicated, Lars, but it’s not like that! I don’t love him that way at all anymore, it’s a different kind of- Honestly, if I had anyone I loved that way right now it would probably be-“  
  
She broke off.  
  
“Probably be…?” He prompted.  
  
“Master Harald,” she said, firmly.  
  
“ _What?_ ” He exclaimed.  
  
“W-What!? He’s, um. He’s really kind… and, um, sweet-“ She flailed desperately for something to say. In a sudden burst of inspiration she said, “and when he smiles-“  
  
“Once in a century.”  
  
“Yes, that. When he smiles, it’s like the whole world lights up!”   
  
“You realize he’s about a million times older than you! If he ever liked you back it would nearly be pedophilia!”  
  
“Our love transcends such petty boundaries!” she exclaimed, dramatically- because she was about to burst into laughter, from the sheer absurdity of the situation- even as she felt herself blushing bright red. “Mere mortals like you could never hope to understand!”  
  
“Mere mortals like me.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I did not think this was possible, but Rhen Darzon, you have proven yourself to be  _even more bizarre_  than my wildest imaginings. And I traveled around the world with a Elini and Mad Marge, so I have some  _pretty_ special wild imaginings.”  
  
“I think,” she said, “I think the potion has pretty much run its course now, actually.” She swallowed- She was either going to laugh or cry. Or both. It would probably be a good idea to escape now.  
  
“Maybe we should, um, get going. I think I’m going to pass on eating out with you tonight. I’m kinda tired. I think I might just head to bed.”  
  
“Now you’re really making me concerned,” he said, half-joking. “ _You_? Turning down food?”  
  
She shrugged, as noncommittally as possible. “Maybe some other time,” she said, forcing herself to sound as light-hearted as possible, and then she fled.  
  
\----  
  
She found that she was lying in bed in her pajamas staring blankly at the ceiling without really remembering how she had gotten there.  
  
She felt… There wasn’t an adjective for the end of that sentence. She just felt. And that feeling of feeling was so strong it burned at her insides, left her winded, like she’d just been rammed in the gut.   
  
Lars. Just thinking the name was dangerous.  
  
Because. If she was completely and totally honest with herself…  
  
Ahriman might have been the official color of her life during the years of her adventure, but.   
  
But Ahriman had always been something so big and incomprehensible. When she’d thought of him she’d always felt panic well up inside her. And she’d used that fear to goad herself onwards, it was true. That ever-present formless, shapeless dread reminded her of what she was fighting for many times when she needed to be reminded.  
  
But.  
  
But when they were hiking through the North in the middle of the winter and the biggest blizzard of the season, and it was not just freezing but deathly cold, and she had already lost all the feeling in her extremities and found herself wondering if a healing spell could grow back fingers that fell off from frostbite (stupid question, when a cassea leaf could  _bring you back from the dead_ , she had thought over and over and never quite been able to convince herself)…  
  
Or when it was the middle of the day in the dessert- that time of day when not a single living thing was about except for the scorpions and the moronic adventurers aka yours truly, when she was able to watch a drop of water leak onto the sand and the damp spot had already evaporated before her brain had gotten around to processing the word “drop”, and she felt like she was being cooked alive and all they would find would be her crispy little corpse, Rhen a la something-or-other…  
  
When she hadn’t eaten a real meal in a week or had a shower in a month and the monsters kept on coming and coming, when she was covered in mud and dirt and slime and guts-  
  
At those times, Ahriman had become a vague figment of the imagination, lost in the endless misery of right now. Who cared about saving the world? Couldn’t someone else do it?  
  
And yet she’d gritted her teeth and borne it.  
  
Because.  
  
Because  _he_  had always been there, keeping up with her, and if she quit that meant she’d lost. The world could burn in hell for a thousand years, all existence could end as she knew it, none of these seemed as horrible as the thought of giving up and proving him right.  
  
Oh, Ahriman’s specter had haunted her nightmares, it was true, but it was Lars’s smirk that had galvanized her in her waking hours.  
  
That that was the relationship between them was something she had never consciously acknowledged to herself. But that was what it had been. If she thought about it, really, more than Dameon or Danny ever did, it was always Lars who suffused every moment of her life.  
  
Lars had become that familiar presence you barely noticed, an anchoring point you relied on without thinking. She’d thought she’d come to Veldarah because it felt most natural to her, and he’d been an unfortunate side result. But maybe that wasn’t true, maybe, subconsciously- she remembered, suddenly, being able to hear his voice saying every snarky mental comment she made to herself that entire month leading up to the wedding. And now…  
  
And now.  
  
Stupid Neya. It was all her fault. And it did not comfort Rhen at  _all_  to know Neya would be delighted to hear that.  
  
What was she supposed to do about this? She thought, miserably burrowing her head into her pillow.   
  
For the millionth time that evening she felt the heat suffuse her face as she remembered what she had nearly said. What she had been all of one syllable away from saying. What she had barely prevented at the very last moment from slipping out of her mouth.  
  
 _That_  close, and she would have told him she loved him, would have looked up at his- oh, what was the use of denying it now?- stupidly attractive face and said that really if she was honest it had been a long, long time since it had been Dameon she had loved, and in that time somewhere, somehow, Lars had slipped into that position instead, as if he’d been there all along. 


	26. Chapter 26

Lars was rather sick of having a broken heart. He was sick, in general, of the entire thing.   
  
And now Rhen liked Master Harald.   
  
He was having difficulty adjusting to this. Well,  _of course_  he was having difficulty adjusting! Anyone in the world would!  
  
And now he supposed he’d have to encourage her or something, in her bizarre, bizarre…  
  
Honestly he’d have assumed she was joking. But she’d been blushing bright red as she said it and he’d  _seen_ that blasted blush of hers in the past. Stupid Rhen and her stupid transparent expressions, he was utterly, thoroughly sick of seeing her feelings for guys that were not him, written like royal proclamations across her face.  
  
Master Harald. Master Harald! Was she utterly mad?!?  
  
No. No. There was absolutely no way he would even pretend to be slightly supportive of this stupid, stupid-  
  
Why the hell did she find it easier to fall for an octogenarian with all the emotional range of a dead fish than for  _him_?  
  
He was over-reacting. It was a stupid crush of hers. She’d get over it in weeks, at the most. Days, maybe. There was absolutely no way Master Harald would reciprocate- his brain shut down at the thought- and so she would realize as soon as she came out of whatever daze she was in that she didn’t really like the guy at all.  
  
Like a father! He should have asked her if maybe she really liked Master Harald like a father! Then she could have looked utterly abashed before finally admitting that now that she thought about it, that was definitely the case. He wouldn’t even have to be worrying about it anymore.  
  
He groaned.  
  
He definitely needed a mental health break.  
  
And so when the invitation from Hector arrived, he accepted without a second thought.  
  
\---  
  
Bad idea. Bad, bad,  _bad_  idea, he thought, for the seventieth time that evening. But it was no use, he couldn’t go back in time and tell his past self that if there was something he wanted to do to distract him from Rhen and her absurdities, it was not the stupid little dinner party Hector was hosting.  
  
But then again, how could he have known that Ylitta was going to be there?  
  
(Okay, so she was engaged to Hector, but…)  
  
Or that within five minutes of settling down to eat she would fixate on one topic, and one topic only?  
  
“And then he ran after that dirty little slave girl for over a year! All around the world!” She said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.  
  
Lars forced a polite smile, but it was a bit difficult to achieve when he was gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might just be worn away.  
  
Hector looked up lazily from the dripping piece of meat he was busy tearing apart.  
  
“Whazzat, Lars? You’re hanging out with dirty little peasants, now?”  
  
“Nooo, Hector,” Ylitta whined, “didn’t you listen to what I just  _said_? It’s even worse than that, he’s been clinging to that dirty little slave girl-“  
  
“She’s not a slave anymore,” Lars said, stiffly.  
  
“Oh, please,” Ylitta said airily, “once a slave, always a slave. It’s in their  _blood_ , you know, the slimy little things.”  
  
“Actually to be in their blood it would have to be something you could inherit and since Rhen actually came from a free-born family- specifically, a royal one- you couldn’t really say that-”  
  
“Oh, Lars, you’re simply hysterical! A slave from a royal family! That’s one of the most amusing things…” She trailed off.  
  
“One second. You’re  _serious_?”  
  
Hesitantly he nodded, unnerved by the look in her eyes.  
  
“You… actually… Lars, this little delusion of yours has gone too far.” She looked at him, pityingly. “I think you need help.”  
  
“I- I need  _help_?” He spluttered. “I don’t need help more than you, you narrow-minded little-“  
  
“I don’t mind your insults in the slightest,” Ylitta said, “as you are clearly not entirely yourself, Lars, but have no fear. For the sake of our old friendship I think it has come the time to put an end to this.”  
  
“Put. Put an end to?” He said incredulously, so angry he could barely get the words out.  
  
“Now, now,” Hector said, sonorously, from his end of the table. “Do let us talk about the weather.”  
  
Ylitta, delighted, began to describe the agony she had gone through debating going out with a shawl or not, just in case there might be a breeze or perhaps too much sun.  
  
Lars prayed for the meal to end.  
  
\----  
  
He staggered back to his apartment in a haze of headache and irritation. He was impressed that he had managed to escape without killing anyone. That homicide was a crime punishable by death seemed hardly a deterrent, by the time he was done politely pushing Ylitta’s poached pears around his plate.  
  
But as he reached the apartment door he paused. Oh right, he’d left some books back at the school…  
  
He staggered miserably off again. Stupid books. Stupid Ylitta. Stupid world.  
  
The doors to the Academy were never locked. In part because no one would be stupid enough to try entering unallowed, in part because theoretically everyone was allowed in anyway. But the doors were closed at night, and they creaked as he pushed them open. It took both hands, as they were solid, imported oak.  
  
At night the school was eerily empty and quiet. From the headmaster’s office came the sound of deep breathing- the headmaster always slept on school grounds- but from several feet away you could hear nothing, nothing at all, as you wandered with practiced ease through the winding hallways and the echo of your footsteps became suddenly, disconcertingly, matched by a similar and yet discordant echo-  
  
“Lars!” Rhen exclaimed, as they both rounded the same corner in opposite directions.  
  
“Rhen,” he said, dully.  
  
“I had trouble falling asleep,” she said.  
  
“Fancy that.” Lars said.  
  
“I know, I never have that problem, but… In any case I actually came back here hoping you might show up so we could practice or something. But I was leaving just now- I realized there was no way you’d possibly still be here- and now here you are! …Why are you here, anyway?”  
  
“Books,” he muttered.  
  
She had grabbed his hand and was already dragging him off to god-knew-where—well, all right, it was almost definitely going to be there training ground— but now she stopped to look at him in concern.  
  
“Lars?” She said, waving her hand in front of his face. “You there?”  
  
She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. “Are you okay?”  
  
He flicked it away, irritably. “I’m fine.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“Someone with a brain the size of a pea, happened. Then a headache happened. Then you happened,” he added, which was both a bit mean  _and_  chronologically inaccurate. Rhen had  _happened_  quite a long time before tonight.   
  
“So… you’re not in the mood to practice, I take it?” She said, slowly.  
  
“No,” he said, wearily. “Which is to say, no, I’m willing to practice now. If anything I’d appreciate the distraction.”  
  
“I dunno,” she said, doubtfully. “You look a bit… Maybe you should sit down. Do you want a glass of water?”   
  
“I thought you don’t get me drinks,” he said. Really, he was being rather nasty tonight.  
  
She winced. “Well. Not when you ask for them. But if I offer…”  
  
“Water would be nice,” he said, cutting her off. It wasn’t like there was any point to bringing it up again.  
  
Things were always a little bit bruised between them, he thought, watching her hurry off to the nearest fountain. He settled onto a stone bench, off to the side of one of the center halls. Lights flickered on in the lamps as he passed. Things were always just a little bit tender and sensitive. That was the whole damn problem. And then she’d go off and do things like-  
  
Like come back proudly bearing a cup of water, grinning like she’d just looted a load of diamonds-  
  
And he’d forget, for a moment. It was stupid.  _He_  was stupid.  
  
“You can just sit and drink, and I’ll practice my forms,” she said, a little giddily, as he began to rise from his seat.  
  
Because even half-rising had brought back the headache- and made, temporarily, his vision go dark and blurry- he nodded instead.  
  
And she stood in the center of the room and flexed her shoulders and stretched her legs and rotated her arms side to side, and then…  
  
Lars, like all sorcerers, has pride. Pride in Sorcery, that was. There was a general rivalry between the two groups, sorcerers and swordsingers, a rivalry that was subtly or not-so-subtly egged on by the adults, so that the children in turn grew up into adults who continued the chain into perpetutity.  
  
Sorcery was more intelligent, more efficient, more effective, then swordsinging. It involved less running about. It was not as crippled by the lack of an effective weapon. It was altogether superior to swordsinging in pretty much every way.  
  
But.  
  
But as Rhen began to move, with rapid, fluid motions, as she danced across the flagstone floor-  
  
There was one thing sorcerers, casting magic in taut, tightly-controlled movements of wand or staff, could never achieve.  
  
Rhen’s sword cut through the air so fast it  _sang_ , as the currents of magic swirled and swooshed around her. She crouched low and sprang and slashed, her braid trailing behind her, loose strands of hair whipping in her face, and she was a terrifying, thrilling, beautiful sight.  
  
She ground to a halt, sword still drawing sparks, and Lars realized he had forgotten to breathe.


	27. Chapter 27

Rhen was rather grumpy, when she woke up the next morning. Really she should have seen it coming, staying up late like that.  
  
She teetered out of bed and cursed the sunlight.  
  
Oh, to go to sleep again.  
  
But today she had to tutor Hio, early, because he had a major examination coming up and he wouldn’t be free in the afternoons for a month.  
  
Once in the school building she staggered immediately for the coffee.   
  
Neya eyed her sympathetically.  
  
“Hard night, huh?”  
  
“Yeah, I stayed up late with L-“  
  
Actually, her brain said, catching up with her mouth a bit too late, that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say.  
  
“How exhausting that must have been,” Neya said, and leered.  _Leered_.  
  
“Shut up,” Rhen said.  
  
She could feel her face burning. She turned away, praying Neya wouldn’t see, because if she did she would never hear the end of it.  
  
But Neya had turned to greet one of the other secretaries who was just coming in, giving Rhen the opportunity to escape.  
  
What had been wrong with her last night? She’d just been giddy at seeing him, that was all. She’d just been… showing off. A lot. And now she was embarrassed to think about it. She was so  _obvious_.  
  
She remembered how her heart had leapt in her chest when she’d rounded the corner and seen him. She replayed the entire stupid conversation in her mind. She’d been babbling the entire time, she must have sounded like a moron.  
  
“Oh, hi Rhen,” Lars said.  
  
She jumped.  
  
“H-hi. Lars. Um. Bye.”  
  
She fled.  
  
\---   
  
That afternoon Master Harald called her aside to explain to her that the Empress had requested for students of the Academy to perform during the upcoming Fair.  
  
“So I need to prepare my kids?” Rhen asked.  
  
“No, no, they’ll be preparing with their homeroom classes. I’m just explaining to you why they will need to be missing a lot of classes from now on.”  
  
“But I should at least help from the sidelines-“ she said.  
  
“That would be very nice, yes.” He said. “But do try to focus on what  _you_  need to do, as well.”  
  
For a moment she nodded dumbly, not comprehending. Then she realized what he was referring to.   
  
She gaped at him.  
  
“I. Oh. I.  _Thank you_ ,” she said, so overwhelmed she didn’t know what else to say.  
  
He nodded gravely in acknowledgment.  
  
“I look forward to seeing something impressive from you, Ms. Darzon. And from Mr. Tenobor as well.”  
  
She nodded mutely.  
  
As soon as he was gone she ran to tell Lars.  
  
\---  
  
“So…” She said casually, sidling up to Lars. “Master Harald called me aside today.”  
  
He stiffened. Then, with forced casualness, he asked mildly, “Did he now?”  
  
“Yes. And you won’t believe what he said!”  
  
He looked at her face, glowing with happiness.  
  
He felt sick to his stomach.  
  
“Do tell,” he said.  
  
Goddess give him patience and let her crush on Master Harald end before his tolerance did, he prayed.  
  
\---  
  
“So he basically realized that we were going to try out in this competition and he’s actually rooting for us and I think he probably thinks we can actually do it!”  
  
“Not so fast,” he said, chiding her, “It simply means he doesn’t think we will absolutely disgrace ourselves- and wait, we?”  
  
“Yes, he mentioned you as well. You in particular. And my students will be practicing with their classes for now, which gives us so much more available time to practice-“  
  
“I also have classes, you know-“  
  
“But you’re not a homeroom teacher, you’ll probably have frees too- In any case how did he know about us?”  
  
“He probably realized when we kept checking out the practice hall together.”  
  
“Oh. Right.”  
  
“Anyway, isn’t this exciting? I feel so flattered I can’t even begin to express- He really is unreasonably kind under that stone face of his.”  
  
“Perhaps you perception is slightly exaggerated by your having-“ He began, and then cut himself off, thinking better of it.  
  
“What?” She said.  
  
“Nothing,” he said. “Look, I have class… I’ve gotta run. But we can talk about this later.”  _Or not_ , he thought.  
  
\----  
  
See? She was actually rather proud of how that had gone. She hadn’t been awkward at all. She’d even managed to avoid staring at his lashes. Or how nice his shirt looked on him. No, she had managed to look at him totally normally. And she’d even managed to have a… mostly normal conversation with him. Because really, they were such good friends, it didn’t matter that she had a crush on him, right?  
  
Right.  
  
Nothing even needed to change. Right?  
  
Right.  
  
She was satisfied with this until she realized she was skipping. Skipping. Down the school hallways.  
  
She was skipping  _and_  she had a goofy grin on her face.  
  
Okay. This was ridiculous.  
  
Something had to be done. Except that when she imagined- when she imagined confessing- her heart sank to her stomach. Cold, clammy fear took over. Because she couldn’t, actually, bring herself to even imagine facing him and saying-  
  
But…  
  
But. 


	28. Chapter 28

She caught up with him outside of class.   
  
Maybe it was a bad idea. But she had sort of not been able to stop herself from at least going to his hallway and then of course he saw her standing around so she couldn’t exactly leave- she’d swallowed the “run awaaaaay” instinct because that wasn’t going to work twice without him catching on that something was up.  
  
“Hi Lars,” she said.  
  
“Hi, Rhen,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.  
  
“So. Um.” She said.   
  
“Yes?” He said, patiently.  
  
“Um,” she said.  
  
“Lars!” Shrieked a female voice from down the hallway.  
  
\---  
  
“Oh god.” Lars said, as the woman began teetering towards them in her precarious high heels.  
  
Rhen looked at him, confused by the irritation in his voice.  
  
“Who is this?” She asked.  
  
“Um.” He said. “Ylitta. Former childhood friend. You remember her.”  
  
Her eyes widened.  
  
“Not that horrid girl who-“  
  
“Yes,” He whispered. “And she’s still a nightmare. Now shhh.”  
  
“Laaaars!” Ylitta squealed, and flung her arms around him.  
  
“Er,” he said, looking distinctly traumatized, and futilely tried to remove her.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” she said, giggling, and kept her arms around him as she turned to see who he was talking to.  
  
Her expression changed from an inane smile to pure disgust in .03 seconds.  
  
“Oh lord,” she said, and made a retching motion. “Not  _her_. Lars, this stupid infatuation has gone on long enough. I came here to tell you that, actually. I did a lot of soul-searching about it- it was very hard, and heart-breaking, too, but you are so very important to me, Lars, and I value our friendship far too much to allow you to make such stupid mistakes.”  
  
“I’m sorry, what-“ Rhen began.  
  
Ylitta turned. “Surely you understand as well, you- um, you- In any case, surely you also agree this is ridiculous, underneath that thick skull of yours? Even  _servants_  must have some sense of what is proper, after all.”  
  
“If I just understood what you were talking about-“  
  
At this Lars made a choking sound.  
  
“No, that’s quite enough, I think.” He said, and began dragging Ylitta away. “We need to  _talk_ ,” he hissed in her ear.  
  
“Don’t pull me away, Lars, I was just about to explain to the servant-girl that-“  
  
“You have absolutely no right to come down here, you addle-prated fool-“  
  
She stomped down on his foot, hard, digging the heel of her shoe in.  
  
He yelped in pain and let go of her.  
  
“Girl,” she said, stalking imperiously towards Rhen.   
  
“Rhen,” Rhen corrected, gritting her teeth.  
  
“Right. Whatever. I don’t know if you have any principles, but surely you must at least have scruples enough to realize how shameful it is for you to continue to take advantage of Lars here like this.”  
  
“I haven’t the slightest clue what you mean,” Rhen said, coldly.  
  
Ylitta sniffed irritably. “Surely you realize how ridiculous it is for a man of his standing- a cousin to the empress herself- to be associated with one such as yourself! Why, it defies description! If it weren’t for his being sadly out of his mind- I refer, of course, to his ridiculous infatuation for you- it would scarcely be believed!”  
  
“I think he has the right to associate with whoever he- wait.  _Infatuation_?”   
  
“Yes, his silly little crush on you,” Ylitta said, impatiently, as if speaking to a child.  
  
Rhen said, slowly. “Lars isn’t- Lars doesn’t-“  
  
She turned to him for confirmation, still confused but certain she must have misheard.  
  
She paused as she saw his expression.  
  
He’d gone white.   
  
\---  
  
He knew he need to say something to undo everything Ylitta had just said, to wipe that expression off Rhen’s face, something, anything, it didn’t matter, if only he could-  
  
More than anything he wanted to be ten feet underground right now. No, more than anything he wanted Ylitta to drop dead on the spot.  
  
“See?” Ylitta was saying, oblivious. “She thinks it’s preposterous too. Don’t you, Rhen? It’s laughable, really. You’ll put this ridiculous nonsense of yours aside now, won’t you, Lars?”  
  
“I don’t think it’s laughable, actually, no.” Rhen said. She didn’t bother to look at Ylitta, instead keeping steady eye contact with him.  
  
He swallowed, painfully. Tried to bring back moisture in his mouth as he began- “You don’t need to pay attention, Rhen-“  
  
“Oh, no, I’m paying attention,” she said.  
  
“It’s not-“ he said, and couldn’t deny it.  
  
He looked away, humiliated.  
  
“Well then, Lars,” Ylitta said, looking back and forth between the two of them, tapping her foot uncomfortably. “Let’s get going then.”  
  
He shook her off angrily.  
  
“What exactly were you hoping to achieve with this, you horrid little b-“  
  
“Yes, do tell.” Rhen interrupted, pleasantly. He still couldn’t read her expression. Or tone, for that matter. It was absolutely nerve-wracking. “What were you planning to achieve with this?”  
  
“Well,” Ylitta spluttered. “Obviously. You realize how ridiculous it is for him to like you. I thought having it out in the open might finally allow him to recover his senses.”  
  
She tried, once again, to take hold of Lars.  
  
“I’m afraid I don’t really see how it’s ridiculous at all,” Rhen said, slowly, deliberately.   
  
Stop it, Lars thought, I don’t need you to try to make this better out of pity.  
  
“After all, I like him myself,” she said. “So I’m actually quite happy to hear he feels the same. Even if I’d have preferred to have heard from him myself.” She glanced at Lars.  
  
He gaped at her.  
  
“So thanks,” she continued sweetly. “That clarified a lot, Ylitta. If you don’t mind I think I’ll be taking Lars now.”  
  
\---  
  
They ran, Rhen taking Lars by the hand, Lars following numbly behind, as Ylitta screeched after them- “Stop! I demand you stop! You presumptuous little brat, how dare you!”  
  
“I don’t think she appreciated my stomping on her foot as we left,” Rhen observed, laughing, as they rounded the corner. “But then she had it coming to her.  
  
Lars just gaped at her.  
  
What?” she said. “Stop staring at me like that.”  
  
“What was that?” He said.  
  
“What?” She said, innocently.  
  
“That. Back there. What you said. About. About li- about liking-“  
  
“About liking you?” She prompted, cheerily.  
  
“That.” He said, bright red.  
  
“The truth,” she said, too easily.   
  
He sagged. “Rhen. There’s like and there’s  _like_ , you know? You don’t need to pretend- You don’t need to feel guilty, I don’t mind us just being friends-“  
  
“Well, I do.” She said.   
  
He blinked, uncomprehending.  
  
She leaned against the wall, panting, hand against her chest. “My heart is beating so fast you can’t comprehend. I wasn’t planning to let you know like that, it just slipped out and- And here I thought there was no way you’d like me back and I’m so  _happy_  I think I might pass out.”  
  
He didn’t believe her. He was pretty sure she was lying. But she was laughing giddily and if she was or if she wasn’t lying either way there was one way to tell.  
  
Hesitantly, terrified of what he was about to do and nevertheless certain that he was going to do it, because if she was lying than this was the least she could offer in return and if she was telling the truth then- then this was her revenge for her being so cheerful and careless about it-.   
  
Very softly, very carefully, he kissed her.  
  
\----  
  
Sometime later they sat down together in the quiet shade of a willow tree on the school grounds and pieced together what had happened.  
  
“I thought you- didn’t you- Master Harald?” He managed to ask.  
  
She began to laugh.  
  
“That was a lie,” she said. “You actually believed that?”  
  
“Well, you’ve been known to have bad taste in men before…”  
  
“I still do,” she said, cheerfully. 


	29. Chapter 29

“So… How does this work, exactly?” Lars asked, after school that day.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You know. Us. What do we do now?”  
  
“We could go on a date!” She suggested.   
  
“Um.”  
  
“To a restaurant!”  
  
“Um.” He said, grimacing. “That’s not the best idea-“  
  
“C’mon, if we’re dating then obviously we have dinner dates sometime or other-“  
  
“If it was anybody but you, sure, but I really, really don’t think this is the best-“  
  
\----  
  
“I need to stop bringing you to restaurants,” Lars groaned, as they staggered out together into the street.  
  
Rhen giggled.  
  
“And you need to stop drinking. No, seriously. You have no tolerance for the stuff, at all. And is there any bottom at all to your stomach? You ate seven plates of food!”  
  
“It was really delicious!”  
  
“Seven plates!”  
  
“But I love youuuu,” she said, twirling. Not a particularly good idea while drunk. “Ow.”  
  
She tried to peel herself off the wall.  
  
“Lars, help.”  
  
“Don’t you dare throw up on me,” he warned.   
  
“Okay, I won’t,” she said, and managed to keep her promise, only barely.  
  
\----  
  
The next day, she appeared in his classroom repentant and a tiny bit hung over.  
  
“I might be an itty bitty bit too attached to food,” she said. “Maybe we should go on a different kind of date.”  
  
“Fine with me,” he said. “Let’s try the zoo.”  
  
They headed over after school. The Veldaran zoo was small, hot, cramped, and overpoweringly smelly.   
  
“Oh wow. A sloth.” Rhen yawned. “This is fascinating.”  
  
“Shh, I think he’s about to do something- oh wait, no he’s not.”  
  
“The monkeys were more interesting.”  
  
“Until they started doing that- that-  _thing_.”  
  
“Well, actually,” she considered, “that was interesting too. In a way.”  
  
He shuddered. “I don’t think the zoo was such a great idea.”  
  
“They have paddleboats. We could try those.”  
  
“You only want to have a chance to push me in.”  
  
“Well, obviously. But it would be  _fun_ ,” she insisted.  
  
“If it wasn’t posted explicitly as being grounds for getting thrown out of the park, sure.”  
  
“What, seriously? They have that as a rule? How lame can you get?”  
  
“…I don’t think the zoo was such a great idea,” he said at last.  
  
“Right. Gotcha.”  
  
\----  
  
They were staring, blankly, at a famous fountain when someone snuck up behind Rhen and put her hands over Rhen’s eyes.  
  
“Guess who,” the person said.  
  
“Neya, stop it,” Rhen said.  
  
Neya let go, laughing.  
  
Lars coughed.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” Neya said. “Not another  _friendly_  outing?”  
  
“Er,” Rhen said. “Actually.”  
  
“Yes, you are,” Lars said.  
  
Neya looked back and forth between the two of them, Rhen determinedly avoiding meeting her eyes and Lars looking impatient.  
  
“No way,” she said, her smile changing to a full grin.  
  
“Um,” Rhen said.  
  
“I take total credit for this,” Neya said, gleefully.  
  
“What on earth is going on?” Lars said.  
  
“Never mind,” Neya said. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone, then. Bye, Rhen. Nice seeing you around. And also-” she leaned in close and whispered, in a gleeful sing-song “I told you so, I told you so.”  
  
\---  
  
After they gave up on the fountain, they tried to go shopping together. It was… not the best idea in the world.  
  
They both felt silly at the children’s park.  
  
They could not manage to find a museum that interested both of them at the same time.  
  
“I don’t think this is working,” Lars said, wearily, as they took a break on a bench together.  
  
“Neither do I,” Rhen said.  
  
“What are we doing wrong?” He asked, after a long pause.  
  
“Dunno,” Rhen said, with a shrug.  
  
There was another long pause.  
  
“This feels weird,” she said.  
  
“It’s not usually like this.” He concurred.  
  
“Yeah, we usually have much more fun than this.”  
  
“It was kind of fun,” he said. “In a forced sort of way.”  
  
“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “ But… whatever It’s weird. I usually don’t have to consciously force myself to enjoy it when I’m with you.”  
  
“I think I have more fun talking to you like this than running all around the city, to be honest.” He said, slowly.  
  
“How about we save this for ten years from now and just do what we used to do for now?” She said.  
  
“Yeah. Let’s.” He said,  
  
“Think we can still reserve a practice room?” She said.  
  
“Sure,” he said. “But there’s no hurry. Let’s just sit here for a while.”  
  
“Mmmm,” she said, and they stayed there until the great red ball of the sun had finished sinking below the horizon.  
  
\---  
  
Three weeks later, Rhen came storming into Lars’s classroom.  
  
“What the hell is this?” she hissed.  
  
“What?” He said, utterly confused.  
  
“This,” she said, thrusting the paper into his face. “This update on the competition. The competition isn’t going to be a straight out duel? We’re not prepared for this!”  
  
“Uh…” Lars said, eying his students. “Sorry, guys, I think I’m going to have to go for just a moment. I’ll be back, so in the meantime just practice that firesnap spell I’ve been showing you.”  
  
His students snickered and made kissy faces. Lars ignored them.  
  
“First of all, calm down,” he said, once he and Rhen were safely in the hallway. “We have time. This isn’t the biggest disaster in the world, you know.”  
  
“I don’t know display swordsinging! At all! I skipped all those classes in school, I always took combat!”  
  
“Seriously?” He said. “That’s a bit more of a problem, then.”  
  
“Well,  _yeah_!”  
  
He glanced at the paper. “It’s not like the competition will be entirely display spells- only one section. There’s also a display of raw skill and an elimination battle. If you do really well in those…”  
  
“Even I can’t rely on doing well enough in those to ignore an entire third of the competition-“  
  
“’Even I?’ Wow, I’m rubbing off on you,” he said, admiringly.  
  
“Focus on the matter at hand, please,” she said, waving her hand in front of his face. He was getting that look he tended to get right when he was about to kiss her, and she wasn’t quite in the mood right now.  
  
“Right,” he said, snapping out of it. “Sorry. Display spells. What about that spell we bought at the circus?”  
  
“The fireworks one? Oh. I haven’t had the chance to try it- hm.”  
  
“Actually, scratch that. I seem to remember another spell we got from there.”  
  
She snickered. “Heh. Still, it’s worth a try. It might not be totally useless.”  
  
“We were going to need to go shopping at some point, anyway,” he said. “You can’t exactly compete with a generic sword.”  
  
“Well, school is going to have a mid-term break… We’ll have plenty of time then.”  
  
“You’re really okay with not practicing display until then? We’ll be a bit short on time…”  
  
“Whatever, I’ll work with the fireworks spell and my flashier battle spells for now.”  
  
“Okay,” Lars said. “Fine. We should start practicing, though.”  
  
\----  
  
“So the thing about display spells,” Lars said, “is that they aren’t as fixed as attack spells. They have a lot more flexibility in terms of what you can accomplish with them… but it’s primarily visual. Which is to say attack spells are very concentrated, sort of like if you’re punching someone and you want your entire weight to be behind the punch. Display spells have more leeway to be all over the place.”  
  
“Um,” Rhen said. “Right.”  
  
“But it’s also somewhat more draining on the concentration and mana. Again, because battle spells needs to be efficient. They’ve evolved over the years- old spells became obsolete and they stopped teaching them, because they weren’t effective enough. The Empress pours huge amounts of money into funding this kind of research.”  
  
“And the point of display spells?”  
  
“Senior mages are convinced they can be manipulated into useful applications. It’s a problem they’ve been working on for years. You notice how the lights in the Academy turn on or off… that’s display magic, low-intensity stuff battle magic can’t handle. But the street lamps are plain kerosene. Because they haven’t really worked out an effective way of harnessing the magic.”  
  
“Right. Okay. Um. This has to do with me how?”  
  
He glared at her. “If you’re going to be High Swordsinger-!“  
  
“Sorry. Alright. I’ll listen to you rant on and on, then.”  
  
“No need,” he said, sulkily. “We’ll just start practicing.”  
  
She grinned. “Excellent!”  
  
“You’re shameless,” he grumbled, as they headed up to the practice field.  
  
\----  
  
“So first just use the spell,” he instructed. “Same way you use any spell.”  
  
She stepped forward, stepped sideways, swung down, and pulled the energy of the sword in to her, the motion amplifying the feeling of power, power at her fingertips, power just beyond her grasp-  
  
A shower of sparks exploded in all the colors of the rainbow. She flinched- but they landed on her arm harmlessly, twirled into pinwheels and faded.  
  
“Ooooh,” she said, awed.  
  
Lars snorted, unimpressed. “Amateur.”  
  
“Hey!” she protested.  
  
“Whaaat, you’re denying it?” he drawled.  
  
“Fine, do something better, if you’re so great!” She said, irritated.  
  
He grinned, evilly, and bowed. “With pleasure.”  
  
He stood, holding his staff, eyes closed. She resisted the urge to poke him.  
  
And then he snapped his eyes open, and suddenly there were mirrors, mirrors everywhere.  
  
“Isn’t this the spell you bought at the circus?” She said. “How utterly impressive, Lars. I bow to your superior skills.”  
  
He didn’t answer. He was focused, intently…  
  
The mirrors whirled into a great glittering star, fragmenting light all over. They split apart and spun through the air. Rhen had to fight the urge to duck, as a great swarm of what looked like seriously deadly shards of glass dove towards her in swallow formation.   
  
At the very last moment they disintegrated, leaving behind little afterglows of light.  
  
“…” She said.  
  
He smirked, hugely satisfied with himself. “Utterly impressive, was it?”  
  
“Alright, alright,” she groaned.  
  
“Who was it who was afraid of losing to you in the competition?”  
  
“My next door neighbor the frog, now can you please just show me how you did that?”  
  
“I dunno… it’s hard to explain… sometimes it’s just a  _talent_ , y’know?”  
  
“…Right.”  
  
He laughed. “Alright, I’ll try to explain it. Reaaally slowly.”  
  
“I’m going to kill you in your sleep one of these days,” she said.  
  
“You’re welcome to try,” he drawled.  
  
She felt herself going red and looked away.  
  
“Anyway.” She said.  
  
“Focus,” he said, stepping up behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, steadying her. Breathe in and out, call on the spell, but don’t just release it, like you do normally. Hold it on a leash inside your mind, will it to be something, feel the essence of it and then form that to your intentions…  
  
“Right. Okay. Got it.” She stepped away, shaking him off, ignoring the expression that flitted briefly across his face. For a moment he seemed about to- but then he reconsidered, withdrew.  
  
She needed to concentrate.  
  
Once again, she stepped forward, twirled, swung the sword so that she could feel the heft of it in her hands, could feel her muscles strain- just barely- as she pulled it up from the down-swing and slashed rapidly sideways, and the power bust out from her, a great flickering ball of sparks that faded away rapidly.  
  
“Aaagh!” She hissed, in frustration.  
  
“Try again,” Lars said, but she hardly needed to be told. She was already moving, slashing… 


	30. Chapter 30

She did not know when she stopped practicing. She knew only that she swung and stepped and swung and stepped until every single muscle in her body ached, until she could barely keep her eyes open- and they felt like they were popping out of her skull- until she was nauseous from exhaustion, until she could barely move.  
  
“Seriously, I think you should stop now,” Lars had said, but she’d shoved him aside impatiently. She was almost there. She almost had it. If she could only think clearly, if her head didn’t ache so much, she could  _feel_ where everything was supposed to go, only it was ever so slightly out of focus, just out of reach, maddening…  
  
She collapsed. She collapsed because of the headache, because of the exhaustion, because it was two in the morning and she couldn’t keep going anymore.  
  
Lars, who had dozed off by the entrance, snapped awake.  
  
“Rhen?” He said, muzzily.  
  
“Lars,” she whimpered.  
  
“What the- what time is it?” He said, in horror.  
  
“It’s only nine,” she managed to say. Forcing her mouth to shape words took too much conscious effort. All she wanted was to sleep.  
  
“Lars…” She nearly sobbed. “I’m so, so tired.”  
  
“Well, yeah, you complete moron, what were you thinking? You can’t cast spells straight for hours, that’s insane-“  
  
She burst into tears. “I’m so tired… it hurts. I can’t think. It hurts. I’m so tired-“  
  
“Shh,” he said. “Calm down. You just need to get to bed.”   
  
“I can’t!” she said, in blind panic, “I’m so tired Lars I’m so, so tired,” and she couldn’t stop herself from repeating it, mindlessly, cathartically, she couldn’t feel anything- not even the hunger, and she was sure she was starving, not even the mana-drain, nothing but this huge, overwhelming, unbearable exhaustion.  
  
She staggered towards him and he reached out to support her.  
  
“I’ll just bring you to your apartment,” he said, soothingly. “You live on school grounds, it’ll only take a minute-”  
  
She forced herself to walk with him, all the way down the winding glass stairs towards the main training grounds, out of the school building and right across the plaza to the teachers' apartments. She forced herself to stay upright for three flights of stairs. She forced herself to keep going as they walked down the hall.  
  
He jiggled her doorknob. The apartment was locked.  
  
“Where’s your key?” he asked.  
  
“In my bag,” she mumbled.  
  
“Where’s your bag?” he asked.  
  
“It… um… oh no, I left it at the field, I left it at the field, I can’t do this, I can’t go all the way back, Lars I’m so _tired_.”  
  
He shook her. “Calm down. Stop freaking out.  _Calm down_.”  
  
She blinked wearily at him. Her eyes were tearing from sheer exhaustion, big drops of water oozing down her face.  
  
“Alright,” he said, clearly coming to a decision. “You’re not in a state to go back, you’re right. I’ll just leave you here and I’ll go get-“  
  
“No!” She said, frantic, clutching at his sleeve. “You can’t leave me!” She was half-sobbing.  
  
“Okay, fine, we’ll just- Where’s Neya’s apartment?” He asked.  
  
“I don’t- I don’t remember,” she said. “I’ve only been there once, it was… 32. Or 24. Or something. I don’t really remember, I can’t think, it hurts.”  
  
He groaned in frustration. “Forget it. All right. We’ll just have to… Stop crying, will you?”  
  
“I can’t…” she said, pathetically.  
  
He breathed in deeply. Rattled the door handle once again, as if hoping to force it open. Pressed his weight against it and shoved.  
  
“Alright,” he said, at last. “Come with me. I’ll take you to my place.”  
  
\---  
  
He was mostly dragging her by the time they got there, because she could barely move her feet.  
  
His apartment was surprisingly close to the school.  
  
There was a footman. Any other time she would have laughed at this but her eyes were barely open anymore.   
  
He supported her up the stairs. Only one flight. And then he fumbled for his keys and opened a door and guided her through a hallway into a big, spacious living room and then another hallway and then a bedroom.  
  
There was an outfit of clothing and a few books laid out on the bed. She gestured at them helplessly and burst into tears.  
  
“Oh of all the ridic-“ He began. Gritted his teeth. “Forget it,” he said, and swept them off with one sweeping motion. “You. Go to sleep. Now.”  
  
“But what about you?” She said, already collapsing onto the bed.  
  
“I’m not going to bed yet. I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours and kick you out.”  
  
“Okay…” She murmured, and fell asleep.  
  
\---  
  
She woke slowly, sunlight filtering through her closed eyelids.  
  
“Mnghghgh,” she said, and rolled over  
  
Someone was knocking.  
  
She staggered out of bed, dizzy.  
  
KNOCK KNOCK.  
  
“’M coming,” she slurred, blearily, and staggered out of the bedroom. She was still fully dressed from the day before, although she vaguely noticed that she was barefoot. She must have taken her shoes off before falling asleep, without remembering it.   
  
The door was locked with a latch and a chain. She fumbled at the chain for a minute or two, trying to figure out how to free it from the metal bar, before she managed to slip it through the hole at the end.  
  
“Hello,” Dameon said, as the door swung open, and then froze, mouth open, staring at her.


	31. Chapter 31

“D-Dameon,” Rhen stuttered, numb with shock.  
  
From the corner of her eye she saw Lars begin to stir on the couch.  
  
“Rhen,” Dameon said, smoothly. His voice was, as always, the honeyed, rich, mellifluous voice of a sun-priest, washing over you softly and soothingly, lulling you into a sense of happiness and security.   
  
Rhen’s heart was beating so fast she didn’t notice. From terror? Shock? Embarrassment?  
  
Shame.  
  
“I’m confused,” Dameon said. “I had heard-“ He hesitated. “I had heard this was where Lars was living?”  
  
Lars stretched and rose from the couch, padding softly towards them. “What’s going on here?” he yawned. Then stiffened, as he saw Dameon.  
  
“Goddess, hellfire and resurrection-“ he swore.  
  
Rhen felt her face burning as Dameon looked back and forth between the two of them.  
  
“This isn’t what it looks like,” she said, desperately.  
  
Dameon raised his eyebrow at her. “Really now?”  
  
“I didn’t- we’re not- It’s not like that.”  
  
“Not like what?” Lars said, extra-pleasantly, slipping an arm around her.  
  
She shook him off, angrily. “You know what I mean.”  
  
“I’m afraid I don’t,” he said, smiling his extra-wide, super-fake smile. “What isn’t this like?”  
  
“We’re not- we didn’t-“  
  
“I was under the impression that we were rather ‘like that’, actually.”  
  
“You know that’s not what I meant! Last night wasn’t- we didn’t-“  
  
Dameon coughed.  
  
“ _What_?” Lars hissed  
  
“I appear to be interrupting a lovers’ spat,” Dameon said, calmly. Rhen felt herself shriveling up.  
  
“Not at all,” Lars said, just as coldly.  
  
“I received the opportunity to take a small vacation from my duties to the throne of Thais-“ He glanced, briefly, at Rhen. She wished she were ten feet underground- “and decided to visit, for old time’s sake. I thought to ask if perhaps you were aware of Rhen’s whereabouts. It becomes clear you were far more aware of them than I was.”  
  
“And if I was?” Lars said.  
  
Dameon ignored him, looking at Rhen, his eyes like tiny shards of ice. “How long did it take? A week? Two? Did you rush into his arms the day of the wedding?”  
  
“You know I didn’t-“ she whispered, helplessly.  
  
“I suppose I should have known,” he said, carelessly. “Although I might have expected you to show slightly more taste-“  
  
Lars punched him.  
  
Dameon staggered backwards. He lifted his hand to his mouth and brushed softly against the corner of his lip, his fingers coming away wet with blood.  
  
Then he straightened, and punched Lars back.  
  
Lars dodged, easily.  
  
Dameon kneed him in the gut.  
  
“Oooh,” Lars moaned, bent double.  
  
“Stop it!” Rhen said, coming between them. “This is stupid!”  
  
“Stupid?” Dameon said. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”  
  
“Rhen,” Lars said. “Stay out of this-“  
  
“No!” She said. “You’re both being idiots, I’m not moving-“  
  
“In principle I’m opposed to hitting girls,” Dameon said, “but if you don’t move out of the way-“  
  
“Maybe we should take this outside-“ Lars suggested, simultaneously.  
  
“Oh, right, go ahead, be macho idiots-“ Rhen said, moving to stand in front of the door. “But I’m much stronger than either of you-“  
  
Dameon slapped her.  
  
She gasped, surprised by the ferocity of it.  
  
When she looked up to meet Dameon’s eyes she saw something bordering on desperation bright inside them. And she winced, not from the physical pain of the blow- sun priests, quite frankly, were wimps- but because her heart ached at how he looked at her, ached viciously, agonizingly.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and knew it wasn’t enough.  
  
“For what?” he said, brusquely. “Move aside, Rhen.”  
  
 _I don’t want to_ , she thought. _I hurt you enough already and it’s my fault and I don’t want more people involved-_  
  
But she moved aside. Because in some strange, twisted way, she owed him that much.  
  
“Lars,” she said, instead. “Please don’t-“  
  
He looked at her.  
  
And then rolled his eyes.  
  
She clenched her fists. “You stupid-“ she hissed.  
  
“I hope you-“ she tried again.  
  
“Whatever,” he said, and walked out the door after Dameon.  
  
\---  
  
Dameon gave him one last kick in the gut and left him lying there, moaning.  
  
“You cheater,” Lars wheezed, curled up in agony.  
  
“I’m a sun-priest,” Dameon said. “What do you expect me to do,  _not_  heal myself?”  
  
“Bastard,” Lars groaned.  
  
Dameon crouched down next to him.  
  
“I know you’ve liked her since forever,” he said. “And I don’t forgive you in the slightest.”  
  
“And I still hate your guts,” Lars hissed, furious.  
  
“I’m glad we’re agreed,” Dameon said. “Maybe I’ll even heal you before I go. Oh wait. No, I won’t.”  
  
He laughed as he walked off.  
  
\---  
  
She thought she probably should have followed them. She thought she probably should have stopped them. She felt like one of those girls in the stories she had always hated, the ones who simpered and stood by wringing their hands as men fought over them.  
  
But what was she supposed to do?   
  
She felt miserably helpless.   
  
She felt miserably guilty.  
  
“You’re such a useless lump,” she whispered to herself.  
  
Then she shook her head, irritated. At least she could find where he kept the healing supplies- meat in the ice-box, berries in the cupboard. She could not imagine how a fight between the two of them must have gone. It was not like either of them was particularly good at close-combat physical fighting, after all.  
  
She tried to snicker at the image of them exchanging sissy-punches and failed pathetically. She was too worried about them.  
  
Lars limped back into the apartment and she gasped at how broken and bruised he was.  
  
She ran towards him with the food.  
  
“Ugh,” he said.  
  
“I’m so sorry. I feel like such a horrible person,” she said, pathetically.  
  
“Don’t.” He said. “That guy’s a rotten bastard. At least I- agh- got him pretty good, too.”  
  
“It’s all my fault,” she whispered, meaning that he had gotten into this stupid fight because of her.  
  
“Oh, there’s no denying  _that_ ,” he said. “But you said you had your reasons for running away.” She could not tell if he was deliberately misinterpreting her or not.  
  
“I just…”  
  
“It’s over,” he said, closing is eyes, leaning back. “He was laughing as he walked away. He said he was going to finally move on, and be the best damn king ever. You need to get over it also.”  
  
“But I don’t know how to forgive myself,” she whispered.  
  
“Figure it out,” he said. 


	32. Chapter 32

See the thing was.  
  
Lars was starting to suspect something was up.  
  
It had taken a while to recover from his fight with Dameon. He was pretty sure it was because the sun priest had mixed in a little magic with his physical blows. The little cheater.   
  
“I know you’ve liked her since forever,” Dameon had said. Every time Lars replayed it in his mind it made him more ticked off.  
  
First, because it was now official that everyone in the whole damn world had known.  
  
Second, because  _now_  he couldn’t help but keep replaying in his mind every time Dameon had flirted with Rhen in his presence, and then his fingers started itching for something sharp and deadly. Not that he hadn’t minded before- he’d minded a whole lot, actually, but that was why he’d gone and repressed the stupid memories, of her blushing and simpering and waiting till Dameon pretended to be out of eyesight before she collapsed against the wall grinning like a freak. Now he couldn’t help but replay them and consider how very _often_  it was that this had happened with him in the room.  
  
Because he was pretty much positive Dameon had done it on purpose. If only he’d had a staff when he’d gone to fight him, he would have sent him through a time vortex to a time when the universe was still little more than a tiny speck of super-compressed nothing. Except he hadn’t brought the staff and his bruises ached- which then brought him right back to the original annoyance, only with more fervor, in a never-ending cycle…  
  
In any case, as a result his mind had been a bit occupied, both with lingering physical pain and an incredible lot of irritation, so that he hadn’t really noticed it and when he had he thought he was imagining it.  
  
But the feeling had grown in him, in a tiny, naggy way, swelled up and started festering, and by now he was pretty much positive.  
  
Rhen Darzon was avoiding him.  
  
\---  
  
This was not acceptable.  
  
This was not funny, this was just…  
  
They’d only been dating for a month!  
  
He was absolutely positive he hadn’t said anything particularly, unusually awful and-  
  
Well.  
  
Actually.  
  
 _Of course_  this was about Dameon, wasn’t it?  
  
It was.  
  
It definitely was.  
  
He groaned, and picked up his pace. He was going to find that girl and then talk to her. After that he wasn’t actually sure what would happen. But it would not involve her continuing to fixate and that stupid half-bald priest.  
  
\---  
  
She saw him coming down the hall.  
  
So she walked rapidly in the other direction- and then more rapidly, as it became obvious he was keeping up with her.  
  
“Rhen!” He called.  
  
Dammit.  
  
She pretended not to hear him. But when she stole a glance backwards it was obvious he was catching up.  
  
She broke into a run. She couldn’t face him. When she saw him, she couldn’t help but think of Dameon. When she thought of Dameon, she only wanted to run away. So.  
  
He lunged forward, grasping for her arm. She jerked out of the way, avoiding him, and as he cursed and tried to recover she managed to collide with Professor Turntile.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and would have helped him gather her books but instead she ran, stumbling, just around the corner and-  
  
He grabbed onto her arm with a grip surprisingly like steel. She twisted it away, breaking free, and he slammed her against the wall and pinned her there.  
  
“Rhen,” he gasped, panting from exertion.  
  
She turned her face aside.  
  
“Why?” He said. “No, seriously, why are you avoiding me? What did I do?”  
  
“Nothing,” she said. “I just… I can’t, Lars. Every time I remember I want to hide in some dark deep hole and never come out and I can’t deal with-“  
  
“Stop it.” He said. “Stop fixating on him.  
  
“Easy for you to say!” she protested. “You weren’t engaged to be  _married_  to him!”  
  
“Oh right,” he said, coldly. “I wasn’t. Thanks for reminding me. Of course I can’t understand why you’d still be fixating on the guy you agreed to marry, before you broke it off with him and ended up with me. Sorry for trying to drag you out of your heart-broken little sobfest, then.”  
  
“Lars-“ She said.  
  
“You know, maybe I am just the  _tiniest_  bit sick of this. You are, as far as I was aware, dating me, but you’ve been avoiding me because all you can do is think about your ex-fiancé-”  
  
“That’s unfair, and you know it,” she said.  
  
He sighed. “Alright. Maybe I’m being a little unfair. Maybe I should give you more time to recover. Maybe. But. I seem to recall that Dameon used to talk to you and you’d melt at the knees. Heck, even Danny- you’d simper and go starry-eyed. Somehow when it’s me, that’s not the case at all. No, me you just avoid as much as possible-”  
  
“Are you trying to say I’m not- that I don’t-“  
  
He regarded her steadily.  
  
She groaned.  
  
“Oh lord, Lars.”  
  
“What?” He said. “It’s not an unreasonable conclusion to come to.”  
  
“Yes it is!” She said.  
  
“Alright,” Lars said, patiently. “Then fine. Do please clarify the nature of your relationship with me since right now I cannot say that I get it in the slightest.”  
  
It’s not like. Um.” She said, fidgeting. “It’s different from Dameon. And Danny. Less… sparkly.”  
  
“And what does  _that_  mean?”  
  
“No, it’s just that… Well, with Danny it was kind of like, you know, he’d look at me and I’d feel all tingly and blushy and with Dameon he’d smile at me and I’d get all. Um. You know. Melty at the knees.”  
  
“Mhm,” Lars said, waiting for her to dig herself in deeper.  
  
“Um.” She said, unable to meet his eyes.  
  
“…And I’m not like this, how?”  
  
“It’s just different,” she said, feebly.  
  
“ _Do_  clarify,” he said.   
  
“Ah, I don’t know how to put it! It’s not- I’m not-“  
  
“You’re saying that when I go like this,” he said, leaning in way, way too close, so that his hair brushed her forehead and as he spoke she could feel the hot air from his mouth against her lips, “you don’t feel… ‘sparkly’?”  
  
“Um.” She said, as her brain short-circuited.  
  
“Tingly? Blushy? Melty at the knees?”  
  
He smelled like mint, this time. (And he tasted a tiny bit like lemon mint sorbet)  
  
\---  
  
After that Lars walked around with a smug look on his face for weeks.


	33. Chapter 33

“I hate display spells. I hate, hate, hate display spells,” Rhen said. “They are impractical and stupid and annoying and useless-“  
  
“Mhm,” Lars said. “They make up for it by being so incredibly  _easy_  though, you know?”  
  
“Agh! Shut up about how amazing you are at them already!” Rhen exclaimed.  
  
“Me? Amazing? Nooo… After all pretty much anyone could so as good a job. It’s quite simple, really.”  
  
“I am going to kill you.”  
  
He laughed.   
  
“No, really, I’m serious,” she insisted.  
  
She was going to stomp over and punch him in the stomach or something, when he stopped laughing and looked at her seriously.  
  
“You’re going about it entirely the wrong way, you know.”  
  
“Well,  _now_  you tell me,” she muttered, but listened to him anyway.   
  
“I told you that display spells are different from fighting spells. You keep trying to treat them the same. You’re supposed to let display spells be more messy and expressive, it makes them work better. Trying to control them so precisely wastes energy and concentration, and they need all the concentration you can manage just to keep them going.”  
  
“But I can’t just let them be all over the place- I need to make it look good so that I’ll actually get points in the competition!”  
  
“Look, you’re not going to get top points no matter what you do. There are people who’ve specialized in display magic for years who’ll be competing. But I’ll tell you what, guaranteed, will get you no points at all- that  _pathetic_  whimper of a fire shower you just summoned. You can worry about being all showy after you’ve actually, you know, mastered the basics.”  
  
“I refuse to admit that you’re making sense right now,” she said.  
  
“You just did,” he said, grinning.  
  
“…Right,” she said, begrudgingly. She sighed. “Alright. Let’s try this, for the millionth time…”  
  
\---  
  
She breathed in, slowly.  
  
Forced her mind to clear.  
  
And then she let, slowly, exactly one awareness filter through. The sword in her hands- The heft of it, the cool metal against her skin, the leather binding over the pommel.  
  
Once, someone had taken metal and held it to a fire, waking in it something-  
  
desperateandachingandalive-  
  
Everything in the world was full of magic. Twigs were full of magic. Sticks were full of magic.  
  
But a sword-  
  
A sword was magic laid bare and raw and then encapsulated in metal that  _hungered_ , hungered to be let loose.  
  
Swords were frightening and beautiful and-  
  
She swung the sword. In a slow, graceful, arc, not the rapid, hard arcs she had been doing previously.   
  
It was surprisingly difficult. The lack of speed and momentum strained her muscles in new ways.  
  
She pulled the sword into one of the standard defensive positions. “Express yourself,” Lars had insisted. She didn’t know what that meant. But she was a fighter and there was no use hiding it.  
  
And then once again she swung, your basic parry, she’d learned this years ago-  
  
She’d learned this years ago, so her body moved without thinking, her body moved without her telling it to, so she could focus, instead, on the fire within the sword, could focus on coaxing it out.  
  
It did not take very much coaxing.   
  
But as it exploded she held back- moved into another stance, held, focused, concentrated-  
  
The fire whirled around her and coalesced.  
  
“Why, hello,” she said, to the great glowing dragon that glared balefully at her. She held out her sword like a hand at a dance. The dragon whirled around-  
  
 _This is like a dream_ , she thought, of the warm mistiness in her head, the feeling of not focusing, of not focusing on the fact that she was not focusing…  
  
No wonder she hadn’t been able to do this. She wasn’t good at this kind of thing.  
  
The dragon exploded in a shower of sparks.  
  
\---  
  
“That was… pretty good,” Lars said, casually.  
  
He meant it as an understated compliment, but she scowled.  
  
“Not nearly good enough,” she said. “I let go way too soon.”  
  
“Well,” he said, “it’s definitely a good start. And now that you’ve started getting the idea we should definitely get you some more display spells.”  
  
“Mmm,” she said. He could tell she wasn’t listening to a word he said.  
  
She stepped back, forward, swung an imaginary sword-  
  
“Rhen,” he said.  
  
“What?” She said, not even looking at him.  
  
“ _Rhen_ ,” he said, stepping right behind her to whisper it into her ear.  
  
She jumped.  
  
“W-what?”  
  
“You need some more spells.”  
  
“You didn’t need to- to- you could’ve just told me that!” She spluttered.  
  
“Well, you weren’t paying attention, were you?”  
  
“I- I-“  
  
“Plus in any case I enjoy this,” he said.  
  
“Stop it, Lars,” she said, half-heartedly trying to push him away.   
  
“No,” he said.  
  
“ _Lars_.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Don’t we need to go shopping?”  
  
“It can wait a minute.”  
  
“You’re ridiculous.”  
  
“Hey, you weren’t all that concerned a moment ago. I see no reason why I should be. You changed your shampoo?”  
  
“Uh,” she said, disarmed by the unexpected change in topic. “Yes? Why?”  
  
“It smells nice,” he said, contentedly.  
  
She flushed.  
  
They stood together for a moment before she pulled away. “Alright, time’s up. Let’s go.”  
  
“Right,” he said, reluctantly. He sighed and followed after her, but she was so focused on not paying attention or meeting his gaze that she didn’t notice him looking at her, his expression thoughtful.  
  
\----  
  
“So, we should probably use the portal stones,” Lars suggested.  
  
“Absolutely not.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because that’s boring.”  
  
“And efficient!”  
  
“Well just take out boat, and… One second. Where is our boat right now, do you remember?”  
  
“Erm. Docked somewhere?”  
  
“Where?”  
  
“…Not on this continent, I’m pretty sure.”  
  
“Dammit.”  
  
“So. Portal Stones?”  
  
“No! We’ll take the ferry,” she said.  
  
\---  
  
The ferryman still remembered them, and of course he was more than happy to give them a ride (at the same price as always, though).  
  
“Ferries. How nostalgic,” Lars said, as they set off from the dock. He was already starting to feel queasy.  
  
“Last time I took one I was coming here. In a wedding dress.”  
  
“Actually, Rhen-“ he started.  
  
“Oh wow,” Rhen said. “A dolphin!”  
  
He turned and barely managed to see the shimmer of something diving under the surface of the water.  
  
Two others appeared, leaping high in the waves- before the ferry rapidly accelerated, taking a sharp turn to the right. They sped away, leaving the dolphins behind.  
  
“That was really nice,” Rhen said, breathing in deeply of the salty air. She had to shout it, really, so that the wind wouldn’t rip the words away.  
  
“Right. Nice.” Lars said, as he held his stomach. “That’s definitely how I would describe this.” He swallowed, willed the nausea to dissipate. “Rhen, I was thinking that-“  
  
“What?” She laughed. “I can’t hear you! Come up here with me!”  
  
He sighed and went to join her, where the sudden buck of the ship underneath his feet made him collapse in a brave attempt at not vomiting.  
  
\----  
  
There was one rather old, pathetic spell shop in the northern continent. It sold fireplace spells, and warm meat stew for those who didn’t need fireplace spells.  
  
“Well, that was pointless,” Rhen said, after they had convinced the shopkeeper that they were interested in neither of his two products.  
  
“I could have told you that it would be,” Lars said.  
  
“Well then, why didn’t you?”  
  
“…Forget those silly portal stones! We’re going on a ferry, Lars! A ferry! A ferry! With water! Oooh, and dolphins! And waves!”  
  
“I forgot you were so seasick,” she said, a little abashed.  
  
“I got a little bit used to it, back when we were sailing around all the time. But I haven’t sailed in well over a year now.”  
  
“Landlubber.”  
  
“Please don’t talk like Pirate John.  _Please_.”  
  
“Anyway…” She said. “I guess we could use the portal stones now. Whatever.” She seemed a bit deflated, and he decided not to press the point. 


	34. Chapter 34

When they has amassed a reasonable amount of spells for Rhen to work with- and one or two new, interesting ones for Lars himself- it was finally time to consider weapons.  
  
Lars had his orb staff carefully tucked away in a locked, magically-charmed and protected box stored in his safe at the bank.  
  
Rhen, however, had nothing.  
  
And as they wandered from weapons store to weapons store, it became rapidly apparent that she would  _not_ be satisfied with what they had to offer.  
  
“Too weak,” she said, at a small, jewel enameled rapier.  
  
“Too light,” she said, of the small sword they offered to her at the weapons store in Sedona.  
  
“Too gaudy.”  
  
“Too pretentious.”  
  
“Too flimsy.”  
  
“Too dull.”  
  
“Too blunt.”  
  
“Too heavy.”  
  
“Agh!” Lars exclaimed, at last. “We have covered pretty much every weapons shop in the known world, Rhen, can you  _please_  settle down and choose something?”  
  
“But,” she said. “But it has to be just right! I know I can use most any sword, generally, but this competition is important- and my power will show through my sword, so it has to be a proper sword, with  _personality_ , not just these… these…”  
  
“Swords that are  _not_  swords of power.”  
  
“Right!” She said. Then caught herself. “No, no, I mean…”  
  
“…You don’t need to bother denying it,” he said.  
  
“Well…” she said.  
  
She sighed.  
  
“It’s. It’s just. They aren’t really comparable, you know? They’re in totally different leagues. An I’ve been managing fine until now, of course, but…”  
  
“But you want to use a sword of power for the real thing.”  
  
“ _Yes_ ,” she said. “Only it’s hard to come out and say it because… because… it feels dangerous, how much I want it. It feels…” she hunched her shoulders, miserably.  
  
“Is it safe to at least go speak with Talia?” He suggested, cautiously.  
  
She shivered. “Aveyond? We could… it could… maybe. We could try. It’s just rather close to the- to the.”  
  
“The sword of-“  
  
She winced, cutting him off. “Please don’t say it. I’d rather not. I-“ she licked dry lips. “I’m not exactly…”  
  
“Right,” he said.  
  
\----  
  
And so they went together to the temple at Aveyond. It was strange going there without the whole party.  
  
“Remember when we fought the harpy?” Lars said. “And then afterwards we found beeswax… that was lucky.”  
  
Rhen shuddered. “We were very nearly turned to stone by that hind.”  
  
They had reached the end of the pathway leading into the temple and now stood before the door. They looked at each other, shrugged, and walked in.   
  
“H-hi!” said Talia, springing up from the couch to greet them.  
  
She looked inexplicably flustered.  
  
“Erm,” Rhen said. “Hi.”  
  
She paused.  
  
“Wait. Why is my father here?”  
  
Devin, who had apparently been reading a book- upside down- coughed. “Well, I did agree to become a sun priest in Dameon’s stead.”  
  
“Oh. Right.”  
  
“So now I’m… training here.”  
  
“Right. Training.” Talia said. She cleared her throat, before saying, in a rapid, slightly frantic babble- “Why are you here? And how is Dameon doing? You were rather late to the wedding, I had to leave early and I’m afraid I missed the entire thing. And Dameon as usual hasn’t been speaking to me.”   
  
“Er.” Rhen said. She did not think there was a good answer to that question.  
  
“Last time I saw Dameon, he beat me to a pulp,” Lars said, pleasantly. “So I think he’s fine.”  
  
Talia looked back and forth between the two of them.  
  
“…Oh,” she said.  
  
Rhen flushed.  
  
“I’m sorry, Talia…”   
  
But to her surprise Talia sat down on the couch and laughed. “I did sort of suspect Lars liked you,” she said. “But you said you wanted to marry my son, so…”  
  
“Oh, not another one,” Lars groaned, quietly.  
  
“It was a little bit… complicated,” Rhen said. “I’m not sure I was in the clearest state of mind- it was selfish of me, but I felt trapped and-“  
  
At this Talia smiled a bit sadly. “Yeah. Trapped. That can happen.” She glanced at Devin, who was staring at Rhen in shock. “But sometimes things can work out, after all.” She paused, and smiled mischievously at Rhen. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to send you horrific, traumatizing nightmares for the rest of your life over this.”  
  
“Uh,” Rhen said, gulping. She had not realized that that had been at stake here.  
  
“I’m a bit tempted to, but I can… I have reasons for being able to relate. The oracle is very skilled at putting pressure on people when she wants to.”  
  
“Right,” Rhen said, softly. She was surprised at how different Talia seemed. Somehow the intimidating red-haired priestess of her childhood had turned out to be somewhat…  
  
“So why are you here?” Talia said.  
  
“Er.” Rhen said. “Actually. We have a… I have a swordsinging competition coming soon. And I wanted a sword to be able to bring with me-“  
  
 _You know what you want, come and_ get[/i] me[/i], crooned the Sword of Shadows in the back of Rhen’s mind.  
  
She gulped.  
  
“It’s s-somewhat difficult for me to be here, actually. She-  _it_  keeps calling to me.”  
  
At this Talia looked a little startled. “I had heard the Sword of Shadows corrupted, but-“  
  
“Not corrupted,” Rhen felt the need to protest. “Just…”  
  
The lure of it was so very strong.  
  
It spoke to every muscle, every bone, very sinew and tendon of her body, the blood rushing in her veins… We were meant for, made for each other…  
  
She shook her head, snapping herself out of it.   
  
“Obviously I can’t have the sword,” she said. “But a different one?”  
  
“I dunno,” Talia said. “A sword of power? For a competition? Doesn’t that seem a bit frivolous?”  
  
“Well…” Rhen said, hesitating.  
  
“ _But_  on the other hand you did save the world, it could be considered a reward… there’s precedent for that…”  
  
“I only need to borrow it,” Rhen said.  
  
Talia considered her, thoughtfully.  
  
“Hm. Well. It isn’t as if swords of power are so easy to come by, even in a shrine like Aveyond. But there is a sword…”  
  
\---  
  
When they got back to Veldarah, they found that preparations for the festival were already well underway. It was fortunate indeed that the East and West squares had been opened, because the Central plaza was completely impassable. Construction of the special arena for the competition was proceeding at a breakneck pace- one day there had been rigging and the next day there had been great half-built walls.  
  
They had to register for the competition. They went together, for what ended up being a two-minute examination in which they were asked to perform a spell, any spell, requested to present proof of their graduation from an accredited magic academy, given some papers to sign, and handed a small bronze badge to present as proof that they were, in fact, contestants.  
  
“That was… pointless,” Rhen said.  
  
“No, I’m pretty sure that guy in the corner was one of the Empress’s official search agents. Remember? Like the ones who came to bring me to the Academy?”  
  
“And… found me.”  
  
“Right. They have a talent for sensing magic ability. I suspect the empress is probably weeding out some applicants that way.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
After that they parted ways, Rhen to go grocery shopping and Lars to make a small visit somewhere important.  
  
\---  
  
They had spent three days traveling together.  
  
Neya had not missed noticing this.  
  
“You haven’t been around,” she said, accosting Rhen in the hallway two days after she got back. “You’ve been too busy practicing for this festival.”  
  
“Sorry-“ Rhen began.  
  
“No apologies! Just spend some time with me today. The traders have already started coming in from all over, I want to go check some things out.”  
  
“I guess…”Rhen said.  
\---  
  
Outside the city had exploded into a whirl of color. Banners and streamers danced in the dessert breeze, and the sound of music and excited chatter mingled. The sights, the smells, it all mingled into a giant feeling in Rhen’s chest of the world becoming something strange and new and different…  
  
They browsed a stand of Veldtian fruit, ‘finest imported’, and another stand that sold small wooden animal carvings.  
  
“I want to check out a jewelry store,” Ney said, glancing slyly back at Rhen.  
  
“Um, ok,” Rhen said, and allowed herself to be dragged along. Neya was snickering in a way she found disconcerting, but she has sort of given up on always understanding Neya.  
  
“Oh, wow,” Neya said, peering at the glass display cases, filled with glittering ornaments, necklaces and bracelets and…  
  
“Oh! My favorite! Rings!” She dashed over to the display case, pulling Rhen along.  
  
“These are so lovely…” she said, admiringly.  
  
“Yeah,” Rhen said, a little bit overwhelmed.   
  
“I love imagining myself buying one of these. But I never do. They’re so pretty to look at, though… Lucky girls who get to wear these. Well, except for that cactus-y one over there, what’s up with that?” She laughed.  
  
“There are probably some people who like that kind of thing,” Rhen said, although she had to admit it was hard to imagine what kind of people they must be, to want a twisted, spiky, copper-and-gold catastrophe.  
  
“I wonder what the person who made it must have been thinking of. His ex-girlfriend?”  
  
“Maybe it has a spell on it, or something.”  
  
“No, see? Tag clearly says it’s unspelled.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
  
“Why, you’d buy it if it was spelled?”  
  
“Well… probably not,” she admitted. “But it would make a difference.”  
  
“Well, what kind of ring would you get, then?”  
  
“Spelled, probably. It seems a waste not to. But I like… designs like those,” she said, gesturing to a small selection of delicate silver bands. “You know, not overly flashy- maybe a small stone? Or a design. Something pretty and cute.”  
  
“You’re rather unadventurous in your jewelry taste,” Neya said.  
  
“Well… I never owned that much. I had a priestess ring once and it brought me nothing but grief.”  
  
“A priestess ring? Oh, you mean a replica.”  
  
“No, a real one…” Rhen said, vaguely, as she wandered off to check out the bracelets.


	35. Chapter 35

She’d bought a down blanket, sold in a stall with a pink and brown canopy that had smelled like lavender.  
  
It was unbelievably comfortable.  
  
It was sort of like sinking into warm, smushy, comfortable goodness. Actually, it  _was_  like sinking into warm, smushy, comfortable goodness.  
  
And it had been on sale!   
  
It just made getting out of bed rather difficult.  
  
She supposed anything good had to come with a downside…  
  
Vaguely she realized that she had apparently drifted off, yet again.  
  
Mmmm.  
  
“RHEN!”  
  
…whuuu?  
  
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU???”  
  
…now that wasn’t nice at all. Someone was pounding at the door. And being incredibly rude about it, too-  
  
She sat bolt upright in her bed.  
  
The competition! The competition!  
  
She was off running as soon as her feet hit the ground, grabbing clothes, food, anything-  
  
“Are you out of your  _mind_?” Lars hissed, as she opened the door, panting. “How could you possibly sleep in late today?”  
  
“It’s important to get a good night’s rest,” she said, a little sulkily.  
  
“Night being the operative word.  _Night_. The sun’s been up for ages.”  
  
“Anyway, I’m here now.”  
  
“Right. Yes. Let’s go!” He grabbed her hand as they dashed down the hallway and into the street.  
  
Once outside they slowed down a little.  
  
“It’s fine,” Lars said, in the tone of someone convincing himself. “The opening ceremonies don’t start for an hour. We have plenty of time to get there. Let’s just hurry.”  
  
It was rather frustrating, getting from the school to the palace square. The vast rearrangement of the streets in Veldarah- the closing of some, the opening of others- had made an already circuitous route into a labyrinth. They dashed in a southerly direction as best they could manage, then of course had to navigate their way in what ended up being roughly a concentric circle before they managed to head northwards again.  
  
When at last they arrived at the central plaza, they were both sorely out of breath. They pushed their way past the gathering crows and made it to the entrance, where a guard stopped them.  
  
“The audience has yet to be admitted,” he said.  
  
“We’re not audience, we’re participants,” Lars said, flashing their badges.  
  
The guard gave their badges a fleeting glance before waving them towards a corridor on the side.  
  
“Opening Ceremony’s starting in ten minutes,” he said, in a tone of utter boredom. “Hey! You! No sneaking in!”  
  
They headed down the hall and into a room filled with bright lamps, where a lady with with-blond hair handed them both ceremonial robes before rushing off to attend to someone else. The entire room was a flurry of frantic activity.  
  
“We have to wear these?” Rhen asked. The hems of the robe had been weighted, so that it was rather hefty to hold- or wear.  
  
“It’s traditional,” Lars said. “But you can just put it over your regular clothes.”  
  
She did so, fumbling a bit. This whole thing felt surreal.  
  
“Are they going to be explaining to us what we’re supposed to be doing?” She said, as she pulled her arm through the other sleeve. This was the sort of robe that did not merely lie on you- it  _draped_.  
  
“As far as I can remember, it’s also traditional that candidates have not the slightest clue what is going on.”  
  
“Oh. Just great.”  
  
“Look at it this way- you’re going to have to go with the flow anyway, you might as well enjoy it.”  
  
“Right. Can you help tie this—um-- sash-thingy?”  
  
“Sure,” he said, and wounds it around here and pulled it tight-  
  
“Ow-“  
  
“Sorry, I’ve only ever done this once, I can’t really remember- Alright, I think I got it. Pray it doesn’t come undone in the middle of the ceremony.”  
  
“Wow. Lars. You truly inspire confidence.”  
  
“I know, I’m pretty amazing at that.”  
  
They laughed quietly, nervously together, and then an attendant came and directed them towards a door and Rhen felt her heart begin to beat staccato in her chest, even as she told herself to be calm, even as she willed herself to be calm, still she could feel her breath catch in her throat.  
  
This was ridiculous. After all, the worst that could happen was simply that she’d humiliate herself in front of an enormous crowd of people.  
  
But the tension refused to ease, even as she breathed deeply she could feel herself trembling from sheer nerves.  
  
Lars put a steadying hand on her shoulder.  
  
“You’ll be fine,” he said.  
  
“You’re looking kind of queasy yourself,” she said.  
  
“I am?” He said, and then- no, she had no idea how he was able to do that- he wiped his face clear, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again his usual cocksure smirk was plastered across his face.  
  
“You look like a smug, arrogant bastard,” she said, amused.  
  
“Excellent. Exactly the look I was going for,” he said. “Try it yourself.”  
  
“Er,” she said.  
  
“Or at least swagger a little,” he offered, as a compromise. “We need to walk out there looking confident.”  
  
“Confident. Right.”  
  
She took yet another deep breath and managed to walk steadily, at least, while Lars strutted in front of her so ridiculously she nearly laughed-  
  
Except then they were out the door and a wall of  _sound_  hit her and-  
  
She’d known there would be a lot of people.   
  
She just.  
  
She just hadn’t quite realized how very  _lot_  a lot was.  
  
Involuntarily she put a hand to her mouth in shock.  
  
The stadium was enormous. Gargantuan. And it was crammed with people, row upon row of seats rising towards the ceiling, and the roar of the crowd…  
  
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” boomed a voice- now how did they manage to do that?- “may I present the finest Swordsingers and Sorcerors of Veldaraaaah.”  
  
“Bow,” Lars hissed, and they bowed, in a whoosh of cloth, some eighty-odd people bowing together-  
  
“Are we the youngest ones here?” She hissed, in a panic.  
  
“Shhhhh,” he whispered back. “Among the youngest, almost definitely yes”   
  
They rose from the bow. A hush fell over the crowd.   
  
“And to welcome them here today, may we present- an exhibition from the students of our own illustrious Academy for sorcery and swordsinging!”  
  
An endless line of students emerged from some door somewhere and marched into formation in front of them. 


	36. Chapter 36

She thought that she was far too tense to stand there patiently in front of the crowd while a bunch of students performed.  
  
But then she saw Gaden, and Kylie, and Hio.  
  
“Oh,” she said. “This is what they were preparing for.”  
  
Lars raised his eyebrows at her. “What did you think?”  
  
“No, nothing. I just- forgot.”   
  
Well, she’d be able to bear watching this after all, then.  
  
The freshman classes went one by one, performing synchronized little dances with flares of matching, nothing particularly fancy or impressive.  
  
But when the sophomores went, they staged a mass battle, and so Rhen watched Kylie and Hio dancing around each other, before Hio lunged and Kylie melodramatically collapsed- not without first dispatching a flare of (useless display) magic that sent Hio reeling. Rhen cheered as they went out, and Kylie flashed her a thumbs-up.  
  
The juniors spread out across the field and created, with massive flares of magic, all sorts of composite images- the empress, the palace, the Veldaran rose… And then they broke apart and reformed, in a pyramid formation, and way at the top…  
  
Gaden flourished a sword and magic came flaring out-   
  
Rhen felt her breath take, along with every other magic-sensitive person in the room-  
  
Sorcery and swordmagic intertwined together, for one brief, impossible second, and then Gaden- pale, shaking, and grinning from ear to ear- was lowered by his cheering classmates.  
  
For a moment the room had descended in a hushed awe. Now they cheered, not understanding what they had seen, probably thinking it was a clever trick-  
  
And Rhen cheered hardest of all, waved furiously to Gaden, who flushed and waved back.  
  
“You were amazing!” She mouthed, as he and his classmates were hustled out, and then the seniors came and gave their presentation, something breathtaking that she barely paid attention to-  
  
“Very impressive,” Lars said quietly.  
  
She nodded fervent agreement, although she wasn’t thinking of the seniors.  
  
\---  
  
What next?  
  
The crowd had fallen silent, as the students tapered away.  
  
The same announcer was back.  
  
“As you may know, it is traditional that contestants are not informed in advance anything more than the general details of the competition. What the actual format will be is kept a closely guarded secret, decided by the Empress herself.”  
  
There was a murmur among the crowd as the Empress rose, in a small, gilded platform at the height of the stadium.  
  
Rhen was expecting her to give an introduction in which she explained the importance, the significance of the event, the pride they must all feel, watching such a marvelous display…  
  
But apparently the Empress judged that they were capable of filling in such a speech themselves, because she simply waved her hand gently, gesturing so that a table was wheeled in, covered in locked boxes.  
  
“Swordsinging and Sorcery both require natural talent, as well as the practice required to hone that talent into skill. But truly outstanding performance in either requires the careful, thought-out application of that skill. To that end, we present these boxes. Each box has been spelled shut, and it is up to the contestant to figure out how best to open it. Inside the box is information regarding the next stage of the competition, so those who finish first will have the advantage of extra time to plan their approach for the next stage. However, points will not necessarily be awarded based on speed of solution alone- points will also be awarded for signs of clear, clever thinking or particularly creative approaches to the problem. With that said, we will now distribute the boxes- red for swordsingers, blue for sorcerors. Contestants, please descend from the platform to the central arena.”  
  
As they began to move, carefully, down the wooden stairs leading off the platform, the Empress added, “One final note. In this particular stage of the competition, it is forbidden to interfere with the other contestants. Any sign of this will lead to immediate disqualification. To facilitate this, we ask that the contestants maintain a clear distance from each other at all times.”  
  
Okay.  
  
She took a deep breath- exchanged a final glance with Lars- and went forward to take a box from an attendant.  
  
The box was surprisingly light.  
  
And… squishy.  
  
What?  
  
But there was no doubting that it gave, slightly, when she pressed it.  
  
It had a big lock made of what looked like burnished copper, and no real seams or hinges that she could see.   
  
The crowd started cheering, and she looked up and realized that someone- a middle-aged man with a dark beard- had already opened his box.  
  
How was that possible?  
  
She fought to keep her panic under control. Most of the other contestants looked puzzled or lost or intrigued, but not particularly close to solving the mystery.  
  
She squinted at the box, trying to see the magic surrounding it. She had never been particularly good at this.  
  
All it did was give her a headache.  
  
She knew there was some other way she could handle this, it was ridiculous-  
  
But she had never been good at sensing magic! The classes in the topic had bored her, because she never really needed to sense magic to do swordsinging, she’d always been able to simply pick up a sword and intuitively sense what it wanted to accomplish. She’d realized in her time at the Academy that this wasn’t particularly normal, but…  
  
Well, why couldn’t she try that again?  
  
That was silly. Only swords could talk the way-  
  
And  _that_ , she thought, was a lie. Like not being able to do swordsinging and sorcery together was also a lie. Once upon a time she’d held a stick and pulled the magic out of it. It was possible.  
  
That didn’t make it easy, though- Already she could see that another two contestants had been shooed to the sidelines with their open boxes. And it was clear that everyone around her was concentrating intently-  
  
And of course she was wasting time, worrying about everyone else. She breathed out and picked the box up…  
  
This wasn’t working.  
  
Back when she’d held that stick the rage and indignation had swelled in her like a tide, so that the magic couldn’t help but respond, pulled towards her-  
  
Here all she had was a dull, dry-mouthed fear. The box slipped away from her even as she tried to capture it, pin it down and understand it-  
  
But she had no one to be angry at, right now.   
  
She tried anyway, tried to coax it out- She could do this, she knew that she could do this, but the tiny little steel inside of her was slipping further out of reach.  
  
When she’d called out the magic in the stick it was because she’d  _needed_  magic right then, needed it to wipe the stupid smirk off Lars’s face. Not that she’d realized the magic would come- She’d picked up that stick and attacked because she had to, even though she was a helpless slave, even though she knew that the consequences could only be dire- a whipping wouldn’t cover it.  
  
She’d been helpless as a slave and the magic had saved her.  
  
She’d been helpless as a slave.  
  
She’d been…  
  
She stared down at the box in her hands and felt the conviction well up from deep within her- it wasn’t fury, it was simply, once again, the knowledge that she would have to do this no matter the odds, that she had no choice.  
  
Because Veldarah still had slaves.  
  
Because they had no magic to save them.   
  
They only had her.  
  
And so she  _pulled_  with some part of herself she’d forgotten existed, and the magic sang into her hands, so she could sense, somehow, that she needed to  _pull_...   
  
And the box, like that, was just a box, with an ordinary hinge.  
  
She blinked, surprised by how easy that had been.  
  
...Okay.  
  
She flipped open the lid.  
  
“Using display magic, express the theme: Something from nothing,” said the paper inside. 


	37. Chapter 37

The box…  
  
Was a box.  
  
It was a very boxy box.  
  
In fact, if Lars had had to use an adjective to describe it…  
  
Box.  
  
Very, exceedingly box.  
  
And that was about it.  
  
There were no hinges, no panels, nothing he could actually figure out about it.  
  
Well, it was a shade of extremely generic brown, but that didn’t particularly help.  
  
He tapped on it lightly, and it sounded, predictably, like a box. It was hard and a bit grainy to the touch.  
  
He tried shooting off a few spells at it and it remained stubbornly box-like.  
  
…Well, this was annoying. And boring.  
  
He sat down on the ground with the box on his lap and began to peer at it closely, running it slowly in his hands, carefully running his fingers over every inch of the surface.  
  
There.  
  
There was a very, very tiny little indentation and it was most likely some sort of hidden hinge- so all he needed to do was cast Decompose-  
  
Cast Decompose-  
  
Alright, that wasn’t working, so how about…   
  
A nice, well placed Lightning Storm.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
…He’d try that again.  
  
Lightning Storm?  
  
Nada.  
  
Shouldn’t the box be a smoking, miserable wreck by now? What on earth had they  _done_  to it?  
  
Well, the indentation had increased by about the thickness of his fingernail, if he looked really closely. Also, it was smoking slightly.  
  
Oh, forget this. He was going to time storm it so hard it no longer remembered having been a box in the first place.  
  
He drew every last ounce of power together and directed it straight at that stupid little hole.  
  
BOOM.  
  
The box exploded, bits of it going flying in every direction.   
  
He’d gone deaf to anything but the ringing noise in his ears.  
  
He wiped the soot out of his eyes and spat to get rid of what had entered his mouth. There was soot all over his clothing as well, he realized in disgust. He wiped at it futilely. Ugh. He looked like a wreck, now.  
  
That…  
  
Had not been such a smart move.  
  
On the other hand, there was a small piece of paper lying on the ground, looking up at him smugly.  
  
“Using display magic, express the theme: First appearances, second impressions” said the paper inside.  
  
\---  
  
Rhen was shooed of to the sidelines, where she got to watch Lars explode his box in his face.  
  
She had to struggle not to laugh.  
  
“Please use these items to recover your mana,” the attendant said, handing her a pile of herbs and potions.  
  
She didn’t actually need them.  
  
On the other hand, Lars- storming towards her looking decidedly ticked off- definitely did.  
  
She handed them to him with a flourish.  
  
“Oh, stop grinning,” he said. “Do I look that terrible?”  
  
“No, no,” she said, “You look… you look…”  
  
She burst into laughter.  
  
“You look great,” she managed, at last.  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her.  
  
“Really.” He said. “Then you won’t mind if I give you a nice,  _big_  hug-“  
  
“Eek, stay away from me-“ She said, but he had already rubbed his sooty hands all over the back of her robe.  
  
“…That was just mean,” she said.  
  
“Whatever. I’ll just cast a cleanse,” he said, and did so. The soot faded, but not completely.  
  
He rubbed on another covey balm and let the mana sink in.  
  
“What did you get on your paper?” she said.  
  
“Should I tell you?” He said, raising his eyebrows at her. “After all, who says we won’t be competing next round?”  
  
“I-“ she began, but just then the final contestant managed, with a gasp, to pry open his box.  
  
“The second round will now begin,” the announced boomed. “In this round, each contestant will have a minute and a half to portray a theme they received from their box. The judges have a list of the themes given out, and will afterwards be informed by the contestant which specific theme was being displayed. Interference with other contestants  _is_  allowed this round. Order of contestants will be chosen by lottery…”  
  
“I got ‘something from nothing’”, she whispered at him.  
  
“Thanks for telling me,” he said, smile curving at the edges of his mouth.  
  
“Oh, c’mon,” she said. “You have to tell me.”  
  
“Nah,” he said. “Don’t feel like it.”  
  
“His honorable Sir Akai Verinns will be first,” the Empress said, looking at the powder-blue paper she had drawn.   
  
A sharp-eyed, middle-aged man with greying hair stepped forward. He stood very still for a moment.  
  
And then in a sudden, swift movement he brought down his sword and the stadium glowed gold and red as a ring of gigantic roses surrounded the stands, before they withered and melted away, producing a black smoke that coalesced into a fiery-eyed stallion, that rode a wave on a raging sea…  
  
And then the entire thing faded away, and the swordsinger strode confidently, almost cockily towards the judges panel.  
  
“Oh, wow,” Rhen said, miserably, as the crowd cheered.  
  
It was painfully obvious to her that she was nowhere near that level. Akai Verinn’s images had been so bold and clear, you could almost feel and smell and taste them. It made her ache with envy.  
  
Next a red-haired woman named Feronia displayed what seemed to be a house on fire, although the flames themselves kept changing into other things- faces and pathways and swords and hands, clasped tightly. The judges, when she whispered her theme to them, looked impressed as they scribbled away in their notepads.  
  
And then, to her shock, the next name was called.  
  
“Lars Tenobor.”  
  
He stepped forward, easily, gave her a cocky smile as he walked to the center of the arena, grasping his staff lightly.  
  
He hadn’t even bothered to go pale at hearing his name called.  
  
He looked around calmly before raising his eyes to look squarely at the Empress. He bowed low, and several girls shrieked. Rhen fought between being amused and exasperated.  
  
He closed his eyes, and swung his staff out in a wide, sweeping arc.  
  
Mirrors, mirrors, everywhere. She’d seen this before.  
  
…Not the part where a thousand Lars’s stepped out of the mirrors, though.  
  
And when his face started changing… That was creepy.  
  
He turned into a tree.  
  
A thin, sickly twisted tree- little more than a sapling, really- times a thousand.  
  
Then she blinked and it was one enormous tree in the center, green and covered in…  
  
Flowers that turned into sharp, deadly blades, that scattered in a whirlwind before settling, as dried, useless leaves.  
  
He gave another bow and walked off to the judges, and Rhen released a breath she had not realized she’d been holding.  
  
\---  
  
Someone made the entire stadium turn upside down- or seem to.  
  
Someone filled the whole stage with water and deep-see fish.  
  
A sorceress with blond hair tied back in a braid made a tiny little yellow flower that stayed tiny and yellow until the last ten seconds, when it suddenly flared out blindingly white and looked like the surface of the sun- They’d had to take a small break after that, to allow everyone to recover their vision.  
  
And when she was almost at the point that each presentation had blurred into the other, so that she couldn’t feel nervous so much as absorbed…  
  
“Rhen Darzon,” the announcer said, and she felt like she’d been punched.  
  
She staggered forward shakily- or at least she felt like she staggered forward shakily, although in reality she was probably walking pretty normally as far as people could tell-  
  
Her grip on her sword felt weak, and slippery from sweat.  
  
\---  
  
“This is the Sword of Radiance”, Talia had said, holding out a long, slim object covered in cloth. “It’s a fairy sword known specifically for purification.”  
  
“Ah,” she’d said. The implication behind Talia’s statement did not miss her. Well, if it could accomplish two purposes at once…  
  
But she hadn’t actually had the chance to wield it properly yet- It had arrived two days before the competition and had remained wrapped up until she’d grabbed it this morning.  
  
\---  
  
“Well, hello,” she said to the sword in her hands.  
  
It hummed pleasantly with magic, but in a much more subdued and polite way than the Sword of shadows had. She’d expected it to resemble the sword of light, but this sword was more humble and deferential. The sword of light liked being noticed. It reminded her more of the sword of dream… or silence…  
  
She closed her eyes, could heart her heartbeat pounding in her ears, a dull thumping that seemed impossibly loud.  
  
But she wasn’t afraid.  
  
No.  
  
Somewhere deep inside her, something hard and stubborn and resistant had awakened.  
  
She recognized it.  
  
It was the same part of her that loved swords, for their resilience and conviction. They were terrifying, yes. But they got what they wanted.  
  
She wouldn’t back down.  
  
All this was… was another battle. Of a different kind. But she could handle battle.  
  
She breathed out and moved, the tempo of her heartbeat the pace she set for her steps, and she let the world fade away into silvery…   
  
A bud twirled delicate, gentle in the air, slowly unfolding, petal by petal, uncurling to reveal, sleeping inside, a tiny, delicate dragon that swelled and grew, eyes flaring, two sets of wings sprouting off its’ back, talons raking rainbow sparks through the air-  
  
The dragon raised its’ head and sang, low and keening, each note a droplet of magic spreading widening circles in the silent arena (and throwing in a silence spell to let each note stand clearly on its own had been a clever touch).  
  
Abruptly it took off from the ground and zoomed, impossibly fast, towards the top of the arena, so that it would impact the roof and shatter-  
  
Instead it vanished.  
  
…what?  
  
She nearly lost concentration.  
  
Someone was interfering with her spell.  
  
How was this-  
  
No no no she couldn’t think about this, right now. She needed to finish the spell. She only had a minute and a half.  
  
“C’mon,” she said. “You can do this.”  
  
Her sword, at least, was a bit irritated by the interference.  
  
She pressed hard against the invisible wall in her mind, and then just as it stiffened to resist her she slipped sideways and squeezed through.  
  
The room went dark, and the fireworks exploded- yellow, green, gold, with swirls of purple and blue, in flames and twirls and dragon-eyes.  
  
They faded.  
  
She lowered the sword slowly, shaking.  
  
“Thanks,” she murmured at it, and she headed for the judging panel.   
  
She darted glances all around. Who had done it? Who? Had all the contestants been interfered with or was it just her? She thought she saw some of the more senior swordsingers looking smug, and her face flared.  
  
“Something from nothing,” she said to the judges, and prayed she saw approval in their eyes, as they bent their heads to confer. 


	38. Chapter 38

The hot, midday sun was beating down mercilessly on their heads, possibly trying to fry some eggs for lunch, when the last contestant finished, limply, his presentation. It had mostly involved wilting cacti and it had been painfully clear his heart wasn’t in it.  
  
When it was finally over, the empress announced- much to everyone’s relief- a break for refreshments. Vendors passed through the stadium crowds, selling snacks and drinks, but the contestants themselves were hustled off to a side hall- how  _big_  was this stadium anyway? It hadn’t existed the week before- and give proper food, set out buffet-style.  
  
“Did you have someone interfere with your display?” Rhen asked Lars, as she popped another piece of breaded chicken in her mouth.  
  
“Um…” He frowned, thinking. “A little… Not that much, I worked my way around it.”  
  
“Well, someone stopped mine. For a full ten seconds I was completely blocked,” she said.  
  
“Maybe because you’re not so good at display magic, it felt worse?” He suggested, carefully.  
  
“I… maybe. I dunno. It felt really strong, though. And vindictive.  
  
He frowned at that.  
  
“Anyone have a grudge against you?”  
  
“Not that I know of, no,”” Rhen said. “Unless you want to count that teacher I used to work for? It would be lame if she had a grudge against me, though. It was months ago.”  
  
“Is she even in the competition?” Lars asked.  
  
“Er… no. I don’t think so.”  
  
“Then it probably wasn’t her.”  
  
He was shifting, uncomfortably, from foot to foot.  
  
“What?” she asked.  
  
“Nothing, I’m just… thinking whether it might be a good idea not to stand together right now.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“People are looking at us funny. It would probably not be a good idea to make ourselves targets.”  
  
“Oh, pfft-“ Rhen said. But when she looked around, she could see people deliberately avoiding her gaze.  
  
…Seriously?  
  
“This is insane,” she muttered.  
  
“Just a little, yeah,” he said.   
  
She looked at him.  
  
He looked entirely serious. She felt a small knot of misery curl itself up in her gut.  
  
“It's just that this is a competition, you know. So we should be... competing. It looks wrong if we don't.” He said, trying to explain.  
  
“But I thought we could at least- you know, support each other, work together-”  
  
“Isn't that unfair to the other contestants?” he asked.  
  
She couldn't really argue with that, although she was pretty sure there was a perfectly valid argument _somewhere_  to use against him.  
  
She wandered off to eat her waffle by herself. Somehow it was less melt-in-her-mouth than sog-pathetically-in-her-mouth, now.  
  
\----  
  
They gathered together in the field again.  
  
Someone jostled against her, hard. She nearly fell, but when she turned there was no apology forthcoming, just several people standing around, ignoring her.  
  
Well then. Their loss. It was  _not_  good policy, to act obnoxious in a room full of people who might very well be candidates for High Sorceror or Swordsinger.  
  
Unless of course they had already completely dismissed the possibility of her being a viable candidate.  
  
She struggled to keep calm and composed. She didn't need to get upset. She didn't need to...  
  
Her fingers curled into fists at her side.  
  
Oh, someone was going to get it.  
  
\---  
  
“The next part of the competition is perhaps the most fundamental test of all, shaking away all the pretense, all the formalities, a sheer test of skill and magic. As I speak, the assistants are handing out healing items- you will not all be receiving the same items, and some of you will receive none at all. The intention is to balance out those of you with higher HP, so that the next part of the competition will be as close to fair as possible...” The empress smirked. “Not like that really is possible.”  
  
She paused, to take a leisurely sip of wine.  
  
Rhen fidgeted, willing the empress to hurry up. It was maybe a bit rude to be mentally urging her monarch to just shut up already, but then, the empress had such an annoying tendency towards the overly verbose dramatic. She said in twelve sentences what normal human beings said in two.   
  
“Um, thank you,” she said, as an attendant handed her some bread and fruit. Oh right. Healing items.  
  
The attendant just nodded and hurried away. The Empress, in the meantime, had turned to confer quietly with someone at her side...  
  
“Where was I?” The Empress continued, innocently looking up.  
  
Rhen gritted her teeth.  
  
“Oh right. The next stage. The final stage. The idea is really very simple- a free for all battle. You are all armed and supplied. You can do whatever it takes to win. Last one standing- is the winner.”  
  
She paused.  
  
“We have a squadron of healers at ready. Once you die, you're out. We'll revive you and allow you to watch, but you are forbidden to interfere. And with that...” she shrugged, in a gentle, Empress-like fashion. “Begin.”  
  
\---  
  
For a fraction of a second no one moved.  
  
Then the arena exploded.  
  
It felt, like a moment, that everything was happening all at once, but then Rhen's brain began processing in slower-motion... there had been only three major explosions, really, and Rhen was in an area that was almost calm-  
  
She pulled back even further from the center of the arena.  
  
There was no point going against some hundred or more top sorcerors and swordsingers at once.  
  
She grasped her sword tightly.  
  
She was ready. She was rea-  
  
She whirled around, sword swinging.  
  
“Agh!” The sorceress- light blue hair, green eyes, Rhen barely registered it in her shock- staggered backwards and fell to the ground, blood oozing from her upper arm.  
  
“Oh god I'm s-sorry,” Rhen stammered. She was about to reach to help the sorceress up when she noticed a slight motion of the sorceress's shoulder.  
  
Some instinct- honed by countless, countless battles with Lars- made her leap back, as a whip of magic crackled through where she had been a moment before.  
  
The sorceress pulled out the wand she'd been hiding behind her back, and brandished it at Rhen, circling slowly.  
  
Rhen didn't wait. Time was always a sorceror's advantage. Another hard-earned lesson.   
  
She lunged, and felt the magic pulse through her, as the Sword of Radiance glowed with power-  
  
The jolt of the impact made her recoil, spring back, land tensely on bent knees...  
  
The sorceress blinked.  
  
Rhen paused, confused.  
  
There didn't seem to be any change...  
  
The cut on the sorceress's arm closed itself up and faded to nonexistence.  
  
Rhen stared.  
  
Wait, what?  
  
The sorceress smirked triumphantly. She raised her wand.  
  
Rhen's mind was racing. The Sword of Radiance... The Sword of Radiance was...  
  
Her stomach sinking, she realized the inescapable truth.  
  
The Sword of Radiance was a bloody healing sword. Or rather, not bloody. Which was rather the point.  
  
“Dammit Talia...” She hissed, inconsolable.  
  
“Prepare to die!” The sorceress declared, dramatically, fireball of power at the tip of her sword.  
  
Rhen slashed at her almost half-heartedly, watched her topple. Clearly not an experienced fighter. Probably specialized in display magic.  
  
What was she going to do now? She thought, staring disconsolately at her sword.  
  
She was doomed.  
  
Maybe. 


	39. Chapter 39

There was no time to think. She had to fight off, without using any magic, three other sorcerors and one swordsinger that had approached in the time that she'd been dealing with the first one.  
  
Then she staggered to the side, weak and woozy, and whacked herself with her own sword.  
  
A light glow seemed to fill her. When it faded, she felt about a thousand times better, physically at least.  
  
Mentally she was still in agony.  
  
She had never been a healer. She had never fought healer-style. She had no idea what strategies to use and she was going to die and then she was going to be out and then she'd never be High Swordsinger and Lars would never stop laughing at her, ever.  
  
Dammit.  
  
“You stupid, stupid sword,” she hissed.  
  
She tried, once again, to call the sword's power into her, focusing the way she always did when she was probing for a new spell.  
  
Her nonexistent ailments disappeared.  
  
...It wasn't like she couldn't see how, say, in a party of fighters this sword would be pretty awesome. But when fighting alone-  
  
She bit her lip and tried again.  
  
A faint tingling told her nothing had happene-  
  
Wait.  
  
Okay, she felt a bit stronger.  
  
She tried it again.  
  
Yeah, definitely a very slight difference-  
  
Agh! She didn't have all afternoon to spend giving herself tiny strength powerups!  
  
She tried, again, to focus all her inner calm in a very pointed manner at the sword's core of power, yanking, tuggi-  
  
WHAM.  
  
A blast of magic hit her, almost straight on. She tumbled painfully backwards and hit the ground with a loud thump. Pain burst like bright flowers of fire in her chest. She coughed blood.  
  
“Oooh... owww...” she whimpered.  
  
Only sheer survival instinct helped her roll herself sideways, aching ribs and all, as another blast of power came hurtling in her direction.  
  
She scrambled for her sword, which had slipped from her grasp. Through her headache she found the power, focused...  
  
A weak healing glow surrounded her. Much weaker than her previous attempts. It was hard to heal when she was hemorrhaging blood.  
  
She felt a sudden burst of admiration for Dameon, for being able to do this so consistently.  
  
She wiped her mouth and staggered upwards, to confront her attacker.  
  
It was one of the older swordsingers.  
  
She waited, dancing around him carefully, eyes locked-  
  
and then she lunged.  
  
He dodged easily and whacked her back with his sword, so that she had to bite her lip not to scream.  
  
He chuckled.  
  
It was such a nasty, supercilious chuckle. She felt the heat of the battle and the general fear and excitement cool into something like hate.  
  
“You seem to be a bit out of your league,” he taunted.  
  
She healed herself again, watching warily.   
  
“Pity no one taught you your place, slave brat.”  
  
Her eyes widened.  
  
“A swordsinger is the property of the Empress,” she managed.  
  
“And a slave should recognize that some are 'property' and some are 'of the Empress' and understand the difference,” he said.  
  
He was goading her. She realized that, somewhere in the back of her mind. He was goading her because he wanted her to make a mistake.  
  
But she was going to Blade Waltz him into the ground.  
  
She danced back, gaining space, and then stepped forward, back, the basic square-dance steps, the Sword obediently supplying power as it-  
  
it-  
  
she was already lunging forward, the last step, the sword swinging, whooshing down...  
  
with no power to accompany it.  
  
The blade waltz spell- and although it hadn't been her very favorite she'd used it enough to know it in her sleep- hadn't worked.  
  
She had only enough time to come to this realization when the blast of powerful close-range magic caught her, straight in the chest.  
  
Because it was so close-range, she wasn't hurled backwards.  
  
Her knees buckled underneath her.   
  
She couldn't breathe. The air had been knocked out of her, and the pain... the pain...  
  
She felt like she was about to black out. No, she knew that she was about to black out, and all she wanted to do was let it happen, let sweet unconsciousness take over, let some attendant heal her whole and let her watch, from the sidelines, as...  
  
as this smug arrogant little bastard gloated over his victory-  
  
as this smug, arrogant...  
  
as...  
  
the world had faded to a sort of hazy, painful white but she managed to tighten, just barely, the numbed fingers of her sword-hand and  
  
power flooded through her so fast she gasped, racing down her veins and bones.  
  
She lay twitching for a moment, as feeling rushed back into her.  
  
“I take it back,” she whispered, hoarsely, “you are a marvelous, marvelous sword.”  
  
The sword hummed in answer.  
  
She could hear the swordsinger approaching. Checking if she was dead.  
  
She lay still, breathing steadily.  
  
Just one more second...  
  
Just one more second...  
  
She staggered upwards, the power gathering, almost without needing to be gathered, and struck, as hard as she could, taking some small measure of satisfaction from the surprise in his eyes-  
  
As a bright radius of light exploded-   
  
The Sword of Radiance had only one attack spell but damn if it wasn't a marvelously effective one. ...and way too costly, mana-wise.  
  
He'd crumpled to the ground and was groping blindly for his sword.  
  
She jabbed hers down an inch away from his fingers and leaned over.  
  
“What was that you said about knowing my place?” She whispered, and if it wasn't the perfect comeback it still felt delicious to say, as she helpfully stabbed the last few health points out of him.  
  
“And that's for interfering with me in the second challenge,” she said, raising her sword one last time, and realized he was already dead. An attendant was hurrying across the field towards them, which was a sure sign.  
  
She retreated to nurse her wounds. She had barely any mana left and she had not fully healed. She fumbled at the drawstring of the bag of wild berries she'd been handed, spilling them out into her hand-  
  
When yet another burst of magic just grazed her.  
  
A white-haired sorceror was standing some twenty feet away, preparing for another salvo.  
  
Damn.  
  
She didn't have time to run all the way over for a physical attack.  
  
She didn't have enough mana for anything more than a firefly ballad.  
  
She started casting it as quickly as possible, but she already knew that it was hopeless.  
  
A barrage of bright pink sparks was headed her way. They looked deceptively harmless. She knew they must hurt like mad.  
  
They were covering too large an area to dodge.  
  
She winced in anticipation of the impa-  
  
Gate Exura!  
  
-ct that did not, in fact, happen. The universe bent into a sort of hole that the sparks vanished into.  
  
She blinked in surprise.  
  
“Are you okay?” Lars said, gasping for breath, as he ran up.   
  
“Um...” she said, a bit uncertainly.  
  
“Great,” he said. “Do you have any healing items? I was caught in a massive explosion, way back in the beginning, three royal sorcerors and a swordsinger duking it out, not pretty. I had to use all my elixirs just getting out.”  
  
“You had  _elixirs_?” She said, incredulously. “I only got some bread and berries- oh right, you're a wimp. I forgot about that.”  
  
“Hey!” He said. “That's unfair!”  
  
Which reminded her. “Why should I give you my stuff? I thought we weren't working together,” she said. “To be fair to the other contestants.”  
  
“Oh, well  _sure_ , if this was like a puzzle-solving competition or something,” he said. “But this is a free-for-all battle!”  
  
She crossed her arms.   
  
He sighed. “I knew you'd be mad at me about suggesting we split up.”  
  
“Yes,” she said, frostily.  
  
“But you're thinking about this all the wrong way.”  
  
“Mhm,” she said, lips pursed.  
  
“We are by far the two best fighters on this field. Together, we would  _dominate_.”  
  
“As usual you are cocky and arrogant.”  
  
“As usual you don't want to admit I'm right.”  
  
She had to smile at that. A mistake, because it let him know that he was winning.  
  
“C'mon, Rhen..” he wheedled. “You know you want to give this arena hell.”  
  
“...Yeah,” she admitted.  
  
She paused.  
  
“I should warn you, though. My sword's only attack uses an enormous amount of mana. And these berries?” She dangled them tantalizingly. “Mine. Get your own berries.”  
  
He stared at her reproachfully.  
  
She plucked one berry and placed it in her mouth, swallowed with great gusto.  
  
He stared at her reproachfully.  
  
She popped another one in her mouth.  
  
He stared at her reproachfully.  
  
“Okay,  _fine_ , you can have them!” She said, and sighed. “I guess I'll just do physical attacks. Again.”  
  
He grinned.


	40. Chapter 40

They didn't have very long to celebrate their new alliance.   
  
The main confrontation over in the center of the field had broken up into a radius of fights spreading steadily outwards. Almost immediately they were attacked from three sides at once.  
  
Back-to-back, they faced the attackers. Rhen slashed at anyone who came near, Lars handled long-ranged attacks.  
  
It helped that their attackers turned on each other almost as often as they attacked them. Rhen and Lars made their way towards the center of the arena, slashing and timestorming their way through the melee. Every so often the sword of radiance gave a healing bonus, which was helpful. Every so often it healed one of its targets, instead of cutting him. This was... less helpful.  
  
Lars usually took care of those incidents with a well-placed spell.  
  
Three spells exploded at once, casting a confusing cloud of magic. A swordsinger dashed up, taking advantage of the cover.  
  
Rhen swirled and around and stabbed him under Lars's upraised arm.  
  
“Got that for you,” she said, grinning.  
  
“Thanks,” he said.  
  
It was ridiculously fun to be fighting together like this. Years of practice together- before the competition, back when they were with the rest of the party going up against Ahriman- had made them a very good team. They coordinated flawlessly.  
  
Plus, of course, Rhen looked amazing when she was smiling in that slightly maniacal way, splattered with blood and wreaking havoc. Okay, also terrifying, but amazing.  
  
Lars cast one of the oncoming opponents- swordsinger? Sorceror? Whatever, it didn't matter- into a time portal.  
  
Anyway this was fun. The rush of adrenaline, the teamwork, getting out of the center of the arena had been unspeakably hard and not fun. But getting back to the center was mcuh easier with Rhen at his back-  
  
“Berries,” she said, popping some into his mouth.  
  
Oh right. He'd forgotten his mana was getting low. That was another thing having a fighting party was useful for.   
  
But the battle. The battle was fun. The opponents came in clusters, or one or two sneaking up or trying to pincer-attack, and Lars was too high off the thrill to really  _feel_  the growing headache of mana-drain, or care that his arms and legs were starting to tire.   
  
He wiped away the sweat from his forehead that was beginning to drip into his eyes and cast yet another spell.  
  
And prepared to cast another one, only there was no one to cast it at.  
  
“Um... Rhen?” He asked.  
  
“...I think we finished them all.” She said. “That or they finished themselves.”  
  
“...What? That's not possible.”  
  
“No, I'm pretty sure it is. I was paying attention.”   
  
“But-”  
  
“What do we do now?” She asked.  
  
“Um,” he said.  
  
It was a rather inescapable conclusion.  
  
He barely dodged as she turned and slashed at him.  
  
She steadily advanced, sword at ready, as he retreated, batting her away with his staff.  
  
She lunged and he toppled backwards, clattering to the ground-  
  
Clattering?  
  
He shuffled back, pleadingly, one arm raised.  
  
“It's not fair, Rhen, you know it isn't, I used up all my mana and I'm not a close range fighter...”  
  
She hesitated.  
  
He grabbed the Aquifolium Extora and drained it.  
  
“One sec-” she began, before he finished casting Riptide.  
  
Whatever she'd been about to say was drowned in the energy riptide. Funny that an energy riptide looked so much like real water. Pirate John had never appreciated this spell, though.  
  
He was already preparing to cast another spell as the magic cleared, but he didn't get a chance. A bright white explosion enveloped him and in a gentle, pleasant, tingly way he felt...  
  
all his healthpoints being drained.  
  
Slowly, pleasantly, with clenched teeth- it was so very nice, he could just stay and- he cast Cleanse.  
  
The giddy feeling dissipated.  
  
He felt woozy and weak at the knees.  
  
Rhen was smirking smugly. Also, she was brandishing a sword.  
  
Well, damn, he thought. He couldn't dodge in time.  
  
He couldn't dodge....  
  
\---  
  
“You have got to be kidding me!” Rhen exploded, as the sword politely healed Lars of all his wounds. “You were down to your last 100 hp! I would have-”  
  
She backed away, as Lars advanced, magic crackling at the tip of his staff.  
  
“Not fair!” She yelped.  
  
“ _Completely_  fair,” he assured her.  
  
She had only enough time to cast a healing spell before the attack hit. But that was enough. She was still standing. And now he couldn't possibly have much mana left... could he? She took a swing at him. He dodged. She swung again and hit and barely managed catching the full impact of his next spell. It brushed against her leg instead, and suddenly it was shriveled and liver-spotted.  
  
She healed herself quickly. She could wait this out. He'd run out of mana eventually. He was pathetic at hand-to-hand combat.  
  
Another blast of magic hit her, and she healed herself. She'd have to survive first, though- all this healing was depriving her of a chance to strike back.  
  
Damn it, if she'd had the Sword of Shadows he'd be plastered to the ground by now.  
  
She struck back, weakly. Speaking of mana, it wasn't like she had an infinite supply either- she'd have to attack.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other sorceror, crawling weakly to his knees. He was reaching for his staff-  
  
She cast a boot-slappin mara at the same time Lars cast Lightning Strike, and the sorceror gave a little moan as he collpased, again.  
  
“Thanks,” Lars said.  
  
“No problem,” she said. “Where were we?”  
  
“I believe I was about to toll the bell of death. For you.”  
  
“You can't just change the rules of reality so that you'd actually stand a chance at winning against me?”  
  
“Ha. Ha. You know that TimeMaster magic doesn't work like that.”  
  
“Of course not,” she said sweetly. “It'd take more than magic to make that possible. A miracle, maybe.”   
  
She cast Blade Waltz, he cast Last Hour. They both barely dodged.  
  
“Look,” he said, panting. “This could go on forever. But we're both running low on mana and hp... what's the point? Why don't we call it a truce. Declare it a tie. They can't force us to kill each other.”  
  
“Or,” she suggested, “I could beat you. And don't think I can't see you preparing to cast Riptide, Lars.”  
  
“As if I didn't notice you starting to do your stupid Waltz again.”  
  
The magic exploded. Neither of them had the strength left to dodge.  
  
“Ugh,” he moaned.  
  
“Not so stupid when it hits you in the face, is it?”  
  
“It's not like you look that great, either,” he said. He paused.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Well this is embarrassing. I just have enough mana left for Shock.”  
  
“Ha!” She said, triumphantly. “Never tell your enemy how much mana you have left! I have...” She paused. “Dammit.”  
  
“What?” He said.  
  
She grinned, lopsidedly. “Wanna make a go for it?”  
  
“Sure,” he said, magic gathering. “Let the best man win.”  
  
“Except it'll be a woman,” she said, staggering through the steps. “Slide thrust!”


	41. Chapter 41

Something was trickling down her cheek. It was annoyingly ticklish.  
  
Blood?  
  
No, too cold.  
  
She reached up to wipe it away, but someone stopped her.  
  
“Don't,” whoever-it-was said. “It's covey balm. You're still recovering mana.”  
  
She sat up, and a wave of dizziness washed over her.  
  
She wasn't in the arena. She was in one of the side rooms.  
  
So this meant she must have lost then. Oh well. He'd probably not her live this down, but still...  
  
“Best person to lose to, I guess,” she said out loud, shrugging. The shrug sent painful little tingles down her spine.  
  
“Hmm? Who would you be referring to?” a rather familiar voice said.  
  
She turned, and saw Lars sitting up in a bed rather like hers.  
  
“...Why are you here?” she asked, confused.  
  
“Same reason as you,” he said, and laughed at her befuddled expression. “We both hit the ground at the same time, the judges can't decide which of us went first.”  
  
“So... we tied,” she said, slowly.  
  
“Apparently.”  
  
“That sucks.”  
  
“Only a little,” he said, grinning.  
  
She grinned back. “Now what?”  
  
He was spared having to answer by the arrival of a rather harried-looking attendant.   
  
“You can sit up? Great! The awards ceremony is starting any moment now, please hurry along, please hurry along...”  
  
They were half-pushed, half-shoved out the door and into the open air.  
  
The sun had nearly set, and the arena was lit by countless glowing paper-lamps. They were led into a raised stadium-area close to the Empress's box, which was brightly lit beyond the rest of its surroundings, positively glowing.  
  
They sat and waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
The Minister of Defense gave a long speech extolling the Empress, the competition, the fair, and the empire's sorcerors and swordsingers. Then the Ministry of Finance did pretty much the same, although his speech involved a few lame attempts at humor.  
  
When the Minister of Agriculture got up, Lars groaned. “They can't possibly be having every minister in a fifty mile radius coming to talk, can they?”  
  
“Shhhh!” Someone hissed from behind them.  
  
The Minister of Agriculture's speech was delivered entirely in monotone. Five minutes in, Rhen was already struggling to keep her eyes open.  
  
“And with that,” he said, “I am approaching the end-” Rhen began to clap- “of my introduction.”  
  
He continued for a good twenty minutes after that. It was agonizing.  
  
When at last he had finished, the Empress stood up.  
  
A hush fell over the crowd, and Rhen, who had been dozing off, jerked awake.  
  
“Everything that could possibly have been said has... been said. So, without further ado... We'd like to announce the winners of the competition. Here they are, the top five- We'll start with fifth place and work up, shall we?”  
  
The crowd cheered.  
  
“Fifth place!” The Empress announced. “Sorceress Caly Avis!”  
  
Two seats over, a woman in dark purple robes stood up slowly.  
  
“I- I made fifth place?” She said, clearly in shock, as the applause filled the arena.  
  
The Empress talked about how impressive Caly had been for a moment or two before announcing that the sorceress would be receiving an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation to a location of her choosing, and free access to the Royal Library.  
  
Caly sat down, flushed with excitement.  
  
“Fourth place!” The Empress announced. “His Lord Swordsinger Aivan Regin!”  
  
The man who stood up looked rather less happy than Caly had, his sour expression strongly suggesting that he had been expecting to place a bit higher than fourth. He also looked rather familiar.  
  
“That's the person that attacked me!” Rhen whispered, in shock.  
  
Lord Aivan Regin was awarded an impressive sum of money that made him look bored. He sat down, but not before sweeping an arrogant glance over the other swordsingers and sorcerors seated there.  
  
Rhen met his gaze and held it. She'd beaten him, after all. She had no reason to look away.  
  
He sneered.   
  
Rhen stiffened.  
  
How dare he?  
  
But actually, now that she thought about it, she didn't care. She'd wipe that smirk right off his face, when she placed higher than him.   
  
“In third place...” The Empress announced, and Rhen waited expectantly, but it was some sorceror she didn't recognize.  
  
“In second place...”   
  
This was it. It had to be either her or Lars, now.   
  
“Sorceress Melvira Addens!” The Empress said. The name sounded familiar, and Rhen realized she'd heard Melvira being discussed in school. So she was someone pretty famous.  
  
“One of the most likely to be High Sorceress,” Lars murmured to her.  
  
It figured.  
  
But.   
  
Then she and Lars must have tied. It was possible, right? They'd tied the final competition...  
  
“Of course our first place winner practically needs no introduction,” the Empress said.  
  
Winner? Had she said winner? Or winners? No, it had definitely been winner.   
  
“His skill with swordsinging is exemplary, a shining example to us all. Sir Akai Verrins, you are presented with the trophy and Grand Prize of this competition.”  
  
She barely registered Akai Verrins standing up to bow.  
  
She was in shock.  
  
How was this possible?  
  
“Honorable mention goes to first and second place in each individual category,” The Empress continued. “In the box challenge, first place Sorceress Melvira Addens, second place Swordsinger Devis Edwidge. In the display challenge, first placw Swordsinger Akain Verrins and second place Sorceror Catlina Murcy. In the survival challenge, tied and therefore in no particular order, Swordsinger Rhen Darzon and Sorceror Lars Tenobor. Congratulations to you all.” She paused. “Of course, everyone who competed here today was incredible. Simply arriving at this competition required great skill. Some of the scores were so close... but, of course, we simply had to choose. It came down to some very hard decisions, and we respect the performance that all of you have put in tonight. The truth of the matter is, you are  _all_  winners.”  
  
Except for those of us who aren't, Rhen thought, bitterly.  
  
“We hope that everyone has enjoyed the magnificent display of skill and talent we've been privileged to witness today. The evening festivities will be beginning right about now. Please take care to leave in an orderly fashion through the clearly marked exits. he winners and honorable mentions are requested to stay for introductions with the Empress.”   
  
Around them people were standing up, stretching, brushing themselves off.  
  
“So we didn't win,” she whispered miserably to Lars.  
  
“I noticed,” he said, off-handedly, and then glanced at her expression. “Wait, you thought we would?”  
  
“Well, I-” She began. “Never mind. Forget it.”  
  
He stretched. “The evening festivities are supposed to be amazing. I wonder how long we have to wait here?”  
  
“Dunno,” she said.  
  
The evening wind was starting up again. Desert nights got cold quickly.  
  
“I hope it's soon,” she added.  
  
\---  
  
At last the attendant came to get them, and they were led inside to the Empress.  
  
“Good evening,” she said pleasantly, looking up as they arrived. “I see you came together.”  
  
“Should we have come separately?” Lars asked.  
  
“Not necessarily. The others did, but that has no relevance. In any case, as to why you've been brought here- firstly, of course, because I'd like to congratulate you on your exemplary performance, and to offer you your award as honorary mentions- a rare spell for both of you, from the royal treasury.” She gestured at two scrolls lying on the table.  
  
“And secondly?” Rhen asked, then felt immediately that she had spoken out of place.  
  
The Empress raised her eyebrows slightly but didn't comment.  
  
After a moment she continued.  
  
“Secondly, I desired to speak with all the winners for a few moments privately. No, no, stay- it's fine, I can speak with you both together.”  
  
She smiled.  
  
“I must say, it is rare to see a swordsinger and sorceror on such good terms. The current High Sorceror and Swordsinger have never gotten along, and they've encouraged the rivalry between the two groups consistently. Supposedly the competition encourages the two groups to improve.”  
  
Something about the way she said 'supposedly' made Rhen wonder what the Empress thought of this theory, but she felt too abashed to ask.  
  
Lars apparently did not. “And does it?” he said, meeting the Empress's gaze steadily.  
  
“Oh, competition is always healthy- complacency is never conducive to growth- but there's a fine line between that and a total lack of cooperation and agreement between the two sides at crucial moments.”  
  
There was silence.  
  
“I-is that all?”Rhen finally ventured, after standing there fidgeting for what seemed like a very long few seconds.  
  
“Well, if you want it to be,” The Empress said, lilting her head slightly. “Although I was expecting you might have some questions to ask. The audience with the Empress is intended as another reward, after all- a private audience like this is rather rare.”  
  
“Then- then can I ask how we did in the competition overall? Since we didn't place in the top five.”  
  
“Well,” the Empress said. “There's a slightly complicated answer to that, thanks mostly to the final contest. Protocol doesn't cover how to deal with a tie. There was one judge who wanted to give you no points at all, but most of the judges were agreed that seeing as you outlasted all the contestants it made no sense to give you less points than anyone else. So you received the standard skill and craftsmanship points, and the points you would have gotten for winning were split between the two of you. Were it not for your tie, it is possible that whichever one of you won might have placed, say, fifth.”  
  
“Oh.” Rhen said.  
  
“Still,” the Empress continued, “You did very well. Especially for your rather tender age. And youth can be an advantage, too- Youth, good skills working together, talent... After all I have to start thinking about who to appoint High Swordsinger and Sorceror, when the present ones retire.”  
  
“B-But I thought the position would go to whoever won the competition!” Rhen blurted out.  
  
“Now, whatever gave you that idea?” The Empress said, smiling wickedly. “ _I_  certainly never said that, did I? No, the present Highs have quite some time left to go... time enough for them to grow older, time enough for others to mature, as well...” She lingered just a moment over the word 'others'.  
  
Then she rose, with a delicate yawn.  
  
“And now I simply must prepare for my appearance in the Parade. It has been a delight meeting with you again, Rhen Darzon, Lars Tenobor. I regret not having had the opportunity to formally offer you my thanks, for saving the world. May the Goddess bless you and all your endeavors.” 


	42. Chapter 42

After changing back into their clothes, they at last headed outside the stadium.   
  
It was rather chilly. Lars could see Rhen shivering, and he could also tell that she was pretending not to.  
  
Well.  
  
“It's so cold,” he said, stretching languidly. “Let's go buy sweaters or something.”  
  
“Y-yes, lets,” Rhen said, without any resistance.  
  
They wandered over to the nearest group of stalls. There were little vending stands set up everywhere, amidst the glowing lights. The outside squares had been cleared to reveal more space than Lars would have thought possible. The air was filled with the noise and bustle of the crowds making their way around.  
  
They bought light blankets, to wrap around themselves.  
  
Then they bought skewered meat and little paper baskets of fried vegetables, because without realizing it both of them were ravenously hungry.  
  
They walked together contentedly chewing, and Lars gave Rhen the remainder of his food once he was quite full. She devoured it quite happily, and then bought two more sticks of meat and a strange hollowed-out tuber filled with a reddish sauce, which rapidly went the same way as their predecessors.  
  
Once Lars would have felt queasy, watching such an obscene amount of food disappear in such a short amount of time (and so messily, too).  
  
Tonight, though...  
  
He grinned.  
  
“Whad'sh so funny?” Rhen said.  
  
“Nothing,” he said, and had to laugh. The wind was invigorating. The fair was lovely. The Empress had strongly implied that he and Rhen stood a good chance of gaining the two most prestigious magical positions in the country.  
  
Together.  
  
He laughed and felt the wind whip it out of his mouth and away, and that only made him laugh more, giddy and exhilarated.  
  
“Um... Lars?” Rhen said, hesitantly, her food finished. “Are you sure you're not... overtired or something?”  
  
“Rhen,” Lars said, seriously.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Have I mentioned to you how lovely you look today?”  
  
She went bright red. “Don't make jokes, Lars.”  
  
“I assure you, I am exceedingly serious.” He laughed. “Also very happy.”  
  
“...Right. Lars, maybe you need to lie down. You're being really weird.”  
  
“I am?”   
  
Her forehead had gotten that little wrinkle of concern in it. She opened her mouth to say something.  
  
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the confectionery stand. “Let's buy some Veldtian waffles,” he said.  
  
“Lars-” she began, and then broke off to tug eagerly at his sleeve. “Ooh, look, they have that fluffy lacy stuff! Spun sugar whatnots!”   
  
\---  
  
They left the stand loaded with sweets. By that point Lars seemed to have calmed down a bit, and she decided not to worry.  
  
Somehow or another they had ended up holding hands, and they were walking now side-by-side, brushed against by the passing crowds but connected somehow just to each other. It left her with a strange, rosy-warm feeling.  
  
“The parade should be soon,” Lars murmured. “We should sit down somewhere before all the good places are gone. I know a good place.”  
  
“Okay...” she replied, and followed him as he led her through the crowds-  
  
“Whoops, wrong way,” he said, and they doubled back and then veered sideways and then they stepped through a gap in the buildings and the noise of the fair faded behind them.  
  
They were on top of a hill, softly sloping, and on the opposite side Rhen could see the wide avenue of the main street of the city.   
  
“That's where the parade will be,” Lars said, noticing the direction of her gaze.  
  
They settled comfortably in the grass and nibbled at the candy. Rhen lay back in the grass, felt herself relax...  
  
The grass itched.  
  
She wriggled, trying to find a better patch. Then she placed her arm behind her head, which was fine until her fingers started to go numb.  
  
She considered flipping over to her stomach.  
  
Then she reconsidered. Lars looked up when she walked over, but made no protest as she lay down, her head in his lap.  
  
“ _Much_  better,” she said, satisfied.  
  
“Mmm,” he said.  
  
Then the fireworks began.  
  
\---  
  
The Empire was famous for its fireworks. The ones at the parade were particularly impressive, bright whorls and flowers of color in gold and red and purple, spiky shapes and abstract impressions in white and orange and green.  
  
Rhen turned her head in his lap to get a better view, but otherwise didn't shift position.  
  
“Beautiful...” She whispered, and watching her eyes sparkle in delight he rather had to agree with the sentiment.  
  
He breathed in, softly, and ventured a hand carefully towards his pants pocket.  
  
Her head and neck were rather in the way.  
  
He considered shifting her, gently.  
  
He raised his hand, to softly brush her aside, and then reconsidered.  
  
He'd recruited Neya to help him find out what ring to buy her. A necessary bit of subterfuge, and she'd proven excellent at the job. He had, in a small velvet box, a delicate silvery ring enchanted with an unlimited snowstorm spell. He even knew what speech he was going to make, when he pulled it out. And how he was going to argue her into believing that he was being serious, and how he was going to convince her to accept.   
  
Despite the preparations, he suspected it wouldn't go quite according to plan. It was Rhen he was dealing with, after all. But it was the end result that mattered.  
  
...And the end result, he decided, as he moved his hand to rest comfortably by her side, could wait another moment.  
  
“Rhen?” he said.  
  
“Mmm?”  
  
“...Nothing,” he said, and felt the corners of his mouth lilt irrepressibly upwards.


End file.
